The elephant is among the planet’s most unusual creatures. They are not just one of the eighteen surviving megafauna, but also one of the largest due to their prehensile trunk, which makes them completely unique.
Elephants are loved all around the world because of their intelligence, generally kind nature, and fascinating curiosity.
The only three creatures that still look like elephants are the African elephant, which includes the African Forest Elephant and the African Bush Elephant, and the Asian Elephant.
Furthermore, they stand for the final members of the larger family Elephantidae, which included mammoths and mastodons in the past.
This suggests that there aren’t many animals that even remotely resemble that look like elephants. There are certain morphological, stature, and nose similarities, though.
1. Tapir
Scientific Name (genus): Tapirus
Why They Made The List: Tapirs’ flexible snouts allow them to manage food, despite being shorter than elephants’.
Tapirs are members of a diverse family of land mammals in South America. All four of the current species resemble pigs or hogs and have prehensile nasal trunks. Usually, this trunk is just a few inches long.
The tapir helps itself to soft plant removal from rocks and lakebeds by using its trunk. The majority of tapirs are also semiaquatic. However, they are limited to living on dry land, and they have.
However, when tapirs have access to water, they use it mostly for foraging, cooling down, and having fish remove parasites from them.
Tapirs don’t resemble elephants at all, other from that. The largest are around three feet tall, six to seven feet long, and 700 pounds or more in weight.
Though still enormous by human standards, that is still a small percentage of the 14,000 pounds that an adult bush elephant may weigh.
2. Giant Anteater
Scientific Name: Myrmecophaga tridactyla
Why They Made The List: The massive anteater lacks elephant traits, although it does have an incredibly huge snout.
Giant anteaters are the largest and have the longest noses among anteaters and its nose look like elephants nose.
These seven-foot-long, up to 110-pound animals are far larger than most people realize. They also usually have snouts that are longer than a foot.
Unlike the elephant, its snout is so unyielding. Jaw mobility is highly restricted in most anteaters.
Instead, their primary food source is ants, which they grab with their long, prehensile tongue. That tongue is often two feet long or longer.
To further aid in capturing and devouring ants before they have a chance to respond, the anteater can completely extend and retract its tongue three times per second.
There is no other connection between elephants and anteaters. They are solitary, insectivorous, and unique to central and southern America.
3. Saiga
Scientific Name: Saiga tatarica
Why They Made The List: Saiga antelopes have an extended snout that resembles a very short trunk.
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia are the natural habitats of the critically endangered Saiga antelope species. Throughout ancient Eurasia, including the British Isles, these antelopes were common.
Nowadays, they are much less common, thus most people are not aware of them. However, the unusually long nostrils of these antelopes set them apart. Its nose look like elephant nose.
This is only a nose; it is not a prehensile trunk look like elephants.
By allowing blood to pass through its thin skin, the antelope, on the other hand, uses its long, broad nostrils to cool itself while running, dissipating heat more quickly. Other than that, the nose’s purpose is unknown.
Saigas may grow up to be two or three feet tall at the shoulder and weigh as much as 152 pounds. As a result, they are among the biggest antelopes, although usually being just 1/100th the size of an elephant.
4. Rhinoceros
Scientific Name: Rhinocerotidae
Why They Made The List: Rhinoseroses, one of the last remaining megafaunas, with colors and hide similar to look like elephants.
Five species of megafauna herbivores, which collectively weigh over a tonne at maturity, are found among rhinoceroses.
These creatures’ thick gray or black skin is covered with short, bristly hair. This and their size are the key things that make them comparable to elephants.
However, they also live in similar environments. The Indian subcontinent, Java, and Sumatra are home of animals that look like elephants and rhinoceroses.
This also applies to bush elephants and black rhinoceroses, both of which may be found in central and sub-Saharan Africa.
Regretfully, the extinction of almost all rhinoceroses is a threat. The Indian rhino is the only rhinoceros that is not under immediate danger.
This suggests that it’s uncommon to see animals that resemble elephants and rhinoceroses outside of zoos these days. That being said, they often have similar feeding patterns, grazing timetables, and a fondness for slobbering in dirt or water pools.
The largest rhinoceros often weights 8,000 pounds. Still, it means they are only around half the size of the largest elephants.
5. Hippopotamus
Scientific Name (family): Hippopotamidae
Why They Made The List: Hippos are a megafauna species that resemble , look like elephants and have dark gray skin.
Hippopotamuses are almost as well-known as elephants due to their size. Both living species are native to the African continent, just look like elephants.
Though they may have sometimes ventured as far as the British Islands, hippos are native to Central and Southern Africa.
Between the two kinds of species, the common hippos is bigger. They weigh greater than 4,000 pounds in several cases. That being said, it is still far smaller than those creatures that look like elephants. Moreover, it is much smaller than whales, which are the closest extant relatives of hippos.
However, among the relatives of hippos, the pygmy hippo is the smallest. At around half the weight and half the height of a newborn or adolescent hippos, these hippos can resemble such animals.
Hippopotamuses are mostly aquatic creatures that must reside in water. They are unable to regulate their body temperature due to the lack of sweat glands, and they would become overheated in the absence of water.
Besides, most of them only eat in the water, therefore rivers with a sluggish flow are perfect for them.
Conclusion
There isn’t a single mammal that resembles an elephant closely, except from extinct species like mastodons and mammoths. On the other hand, there exist several other species that look like elephants appearance. In terms of skin tone, eating habits, or prehensile noses, none of them resemble elephants exactly.
Frequently Ask Question(FAQs)
Which wildlife animals look like elephants?
In appearance and size, it resembles a marmot, but you can already identify the source of the tusks. Manatees and dugongs are animals that look like elephant in appearance. The three closest extant relatives and look like elephants are the little, rabbit-sized rock hyrax, manatees, and dugongs. Their other closest cousins are the dudgeon and the manatee.