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Top 10 Animals After Dark: The Elephant
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#6 -- When Elephants Eat Out

By Jessika Toothman

African elephants rest during the heat of the day, but at night they're all business; it takes a ton of food to feed a herd of hungry elephants. In the darkness they use their trunks to sniff out vegetation — grasses, leaves, roots, bark and fruit — and leave a wide swath of destruction in their wake. Foraging is a full-time job; sometimes they even shove down enormous trees in order to obtain all of its nutrients.

While active in the evenings, elephants' padded feet help conceal the sounds of their movements from predators. Like the hippos, you don't want to make an elephant mom angry. They fiercely defend their young from potential predators, and there are lots of those on the prowl in the middle of the savannah night. First spreading their huge ears to look larger and more imposing, elephant cows can decide to charge, using their tusks in ways it's best not to contemplate.

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