WWW: Elephants

Weird and Wonderful World: Why Elephants Can't Jump

By Magda Zdanowicz

I always remember the joy of jumping off something dangerous and then almost breaking my legs when I land on a hard surface. It was so much fun. However, not all animals experience this joy. For reasons that science and logic can explain, elephants cannot jump. When I first came across this fact I thought it was an easy answer. My exact answer was, “They are too heavy… duh.” Now my answer, even though it was very simple, was partially true. Elephants are way too heavy to rely on their joints to propel them into the air. It is like asking one of those tiny coil springs from inside an ink pen to propel a full water bottle into the air.

It is just impossible, but there are some other reasons why elephants can’t jump. One of them being that elephants are just too cool for school. They don’t jump because they just don’t need to. Since they are so large, most animals are terrified of them. Animals like kangaroos and monkeys jump because they have to run away from the predators that want to kill them, but elephants don’t have many natural enemies. Elephants just walk by and all the animals that decide to go hunting instantly give up and go back home.

There is another reason why elephants can’t jump that is more sciency. The bones in their legs are not as strong as human legs so they don’t have that “spring” to propel their muscular and toned body off the ground. (Obviously an elephant’s legs are technically stronger than a humans but when talking about comparing their weight to the strength of their legs, humans have stronger legs). Their ankles are way too weak and their muscles (even though they are very muscular) are not enough to withstand a simple jump. They don’t even go airborne. We are able to run really fast and to the point where our feet leave the ground for .07 seconds, which is nothing but still gives a rush. When elephants run, they always have at least one leg on the ground at all times.

However, some large animals like rhinos do go airborne when they run. John Hutchinson, a professor of evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College in London, explains “There must be something about rhinos that makes them stronger [than elephants].” Sometimes even scientists don’t know the cause of many things that happen in nature. Also scientists can’t prove negatives so all of these facts are a part of a huge hypothesis. So with this in mind, maybe elephants don’t jump because they physically can’t or just because they don’t think you are cool enough to see their sick moves.

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