Although the African elephant is the largest and most powerful of all living land mammals, it is also among the most gentle, living in peaceful family units. Essentially an animal of open grassland, the African elephant is adaptable enough to live happily in a variety of habitats within its sub-Saharan African homeland. But wherever it lives, the elephant never strays far from a supply of drinking and bathing water.
Elephants are social animals with strong family ties.
So close are the relationships that they even bury their dead with twigs and leaves. They also grieve over their loss, staying by the grave for many hours. Females and their calves live in family units under the leadership of a mature female, to whom every other member of the group is related. Young males are driven from the family when they reach puberty to live in separate bachelor herds. Adult males live alone and join a family unit only briefly when a female is ready to mate.