Why do elephants have such big ears? There’s not one answer.

It’s a classic Disney moment: Dumbo the elephant jumps out of a burning building, spreads out his huge ears and flies. While real life elephants can’t fly, they certainly have enormous ears. The African elephant, for instance, has the largest ears of any animal. Their ears can grow up to 6.6 feet long and 4.11 feet wide, making up 20% of their body’s total surface area. But why are elephants’ ears so large?

It’s nothing to do with flying, of course. Elephant ears play a vital role in how they cool down and communicate. 

Why staying cool is so hard for elephants

Elephants are the world’s largest land animal, weighing a staggering 12,000 pounds (more than an ambulance). While elephants’ size is often an advantage when it comes to warding off predators or reaching high vegetation, it also makes it harder for them to stay cool. Their massive bodies produce a ton of internal body heat, even when they’re just standing still. 

What makes this an even bigger problem is their habitat. Elephants typically live in warm climates where there is a higher risk of overheating.  

Us humans cool down by dispersing heat through long, narrow body parts, like our legs and arms. Elephants, however, with their bulky bodies and thick legs, have relatively little skin surface to release all that built up heat. 

Unlike humans, elephants also don’t really sweat. They have a few sweat glands mostly between their toes that can release a small amount of moisture but this only helps to cool them down slightly. They also can’t pant, like dogs. So they’ve developed other ways to cool down.

How elephants use their ears to cool down

“Elephant ears are exceptionally efficient at shedding heat,” says Angela Stöger-Horwath, a professor in zoo conservation science at the University of Vienna. Their ears have a large surface area containing thousands of tiny blood vessels.

When elephants pump blood to their ears, the blood moves along those thousands of vessels cooling to the outside temperature. The blood then recirculates through the elephant’s body, helping the animal return to a normal body temperature.

Ear flapping also helps to dissipate heat. When elephants flap their ears, they increase the airflow across those blood vessels, further cooling the blood.

Using a computer model, researchers have demonstrated that elephants mostly lose heat through their ears. “The ears act as adjustable radiators,” says Stöger-Horwath. “Elephants use them more or less depending on the temperature, activity, or time of day.”

This cooling strategy has even influenced elephant evolution. The African elephant has the largest ears of any species because it’s exposed to hotter, open landscapes, while Asian elephants have comparatively smaller ears because they live in shaded forests.  

But as the planet warms due to climate change, elephants and their impressive ears may face new challenges. “The ears of elephants are a really important adaptive mechanism,” says George Wittemyer, a professor of fish, wildlife, and conservation biology at Colorado State University. “But they’re getting exposed to heat in new and different ways with the planet warming. What’s going to be beyond their capacity to manage?” 

How elephants communicate using their ears

Elephants also use their ears to talk to one another. “They hold their ears in a variety of different positions to signal their emotional state or behavioral intent,” says Michael A. Pardo, a senior scientist at the non-profit organization Elephant Voices. When facing a threat they often spread their ears out 90 degrees from their body to make themselves look even bigger. This is often used as a warning for others to back off. 

In social situations, an elephant’s ear movement can signal joy, agitation, dominance, and coordinate group behavior. “When elephants are highly emotionally aroused, such as when greeting family members after a period of separation, they often flap their ears rapidly,” says Pardo. It’s their way of saying, “Hey, I’ve missed you! Where have you been?”

Elephants are amazing listeners

Elephants’ ears also help them hear a wide range of sounds, particularly in the low frequency range. While elephants certainly make many sounds humans can hear, most of their communication is at frequencies so low we can’t. These low frequency sounds have long wavelengths that trees and vegetation are less likely to interfere with. This allows these sounds to travel much farther through dense forests or wide savannas, making elephants impressive listeners. Some elephants can even hear sounds from more than 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.  

Elephants’ ears also help them locate where a noise is coming from more precisely. “Their large ears help channel sound waves into their eardrums,” says Wittemyer. “Elephants are using that. You can see that when they’re listening, they’ll stand up and their ears will be out.” This can help them pinpoint threats and improve their chances of survival for tomorrow.

Although they don’t give elephants the power to fly like Dumbo, elephants’ massive ears are a kind of superpower. They help them communicate across long distances, cool down in the heat of the savanna, defend themselves, and even show how much they miss each other. 

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