Contrary to images in popular media, most elephants do not like peanuts. Not only is there no evidence of elephants voluntarily eating peanuts on their own in the wild, but zoos and circus trainers also do not typically feed the animals peanuts. An adult elephant eats an average of 300 pounds (136 kg) of food per day, and peanuts generally would not be able to fulfill their nutritional requirements. More common items in the diet of an elephant include fruit, grass, bark and roots. Although there is no definitive source of how this myth came about, the image tends to be most common in Western popular culture and is thought to be traced to promotional materials for circuses that tried to encourage spectators to buy peanuts.
More about elephants:
- Elephants can recognize their own images in mirrors.
- African elephants are the world’s largest land mammals and weigh as much as 14,000 pounds (6,350 kg).
- The average elephant could spend 18 hours a day just eating.
