Fun fact: elephants sleep standing up and only take short 2 to 3 hour naps!
In the desert, water is scarce. Elephants use their tusks to dig water wells in dry river beds in order to reach underground water. To stay cool and prevent sunburn, the elephants will bathe in mud, providing an extra layer to protect them.
Elephants do not have many threatening predators in the wild. Only lions, crocodiles and tigers will hunt them, usually when the elephant is young. Still, it takes many predators to take the elephant down. The main threat to their survival is poaching for their ivory tusks. About 20,000 elephants are killed annually by poaching, causing Botswana to protect them.
