VIDEO: Elephant Introduces Herself to Safari Driver

Elephants are very social creatures and wild safaris are the best opportunities we have to take a first-hand look at them in their natural habitat.

This video captured the moment an elephant spotted a parked car and walked over to introduce herself to the driver.

According to Live Science, elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They have characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. There are two species of elephant.

The Asian elephant and the African elephant live on separate continents and have many unique features. There are several subspecies that belong to one or the other of these two main species, though there is disagreement over just how many subspecies there are.

African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rain forests of Central and West Africa and the Sahel desert in Mali. Asian elephants live in Nepal, India and Southeast Asia in scrub forests and rain forests.

Elephants eat grasses, roots, fruit and bark. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground.

An elephant has an appetite that matches its size. An adult can eat 300 lbs. (136 kg) of food in a day, according to the National Geographic.

A group of elephants is called a herd. The herd is led by a matriarch, which is the oldest female. Females, as well as young and old elephants, stick together in a herd. Adult males tend to wander on their own.

Elephants also have certain rules. For example, when they are meeting each other, they expect the other elephant to extend its trunk in greeting. The matriarch will often teach young elephants in her herd how to act properly.

Male elephants are called bulls and females are called cows. After mating, the cow will be pregnant for around 22 months. When the baby elephant is finally born, it can weigh around 200 lbs. (91 kg) and stand about 3 feet (1 m) tall.

A baby elephant is called a calf. As the calf grows, it will gain 2 to 3 lbs. every day until its first birthday. By the time they are 2 or 3 years old, calves are ready to be weaned. Male calves will wander off on their own, while females will stay with their mothers. When they are 13 to 20 years old, they will be mature enough to have their own young. Elephants live 30 to 50 years in the wild.

According to the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Asian elephant is endangered. Though it is not known exactly how many Asian elephants remain, it is believed that the population is decreasing.

The African elephant is considered vulnerable. Overall, its populations are increasing. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, there are around 470,000 African elephants roaming the globe.

The African elephant can be identified by its ears. Stretched out, its ears are shaped like the African continent. Asian elephants have smaller ears, which are more rounded on top and flat along the bottom. Heat radiates out of the elephant’s massive ears, acting as a cooling mechanism.