A herd may travel over an area of 390 square miles. To find food elephants must roam large areas. Elephants are vegetarians. They eat about 16 hours every day. They eat grass, shrubs, leaves, roots, bark, branches, fruit, and water plants.
Elephants use their tusks to tear bark off trees and to dig up roots and shrubs.
They especially like to eat bamboo, berries, coconuts, corn, dates, plums, and sugar cane. A wild African elephant eats over 770 pounds of food a day. The Asiatic elephant eats about 650 pounds. Elephants in zoos eat about 150 pounds of food ea ch day. Young An elephant cow usually has only one calf at a time.