Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Generalist herbivores

• Feed as browsers (eat shrubs and trees) and grazers (eat grass)
• Eat a wide variety of trees, shrubs, climbing plants (e.g., vines), herbs, and other plant types (e.g., Mueller-Dombois 1972; McKay 1973; Steinheim et al. 2005; Chen et al. 2006; Baskaran et al. 2010; Wittemyer 2011; Koirala et al. 2016; Yamamoto-Ebina et al. 2016; Abdullah-Fauzi et al. 2022; Mohd-Radzi et al. 2022; Ong et al. 2023)
• Tend to prefer grasses and bamboos, when available (Krishnan 1972; Wittemyer 2011; English, Gillespie, et al. 2014)
• Rely heavily on browse plants in some habitats, such as tropical wet forests (Sukumar 2006; Baskaran et al. 2010)
• Flexible diet composition that depends on habitat quality and seasonal plant abundance
• Diet can include many diverse plant species:
  • Southern India: 100+ plant species (Sukumar 1990)
  • Borneo: 180+ plant species (English, Gillespie, et al. 2014)
  • Nepal: about 60 plant species (Koirala et al. 2016)
  • Southern China: 100+ plant species (via direct observation) (Chen et al. 2006)
  • Diet studies using environmental DNA methods suggest Asian elephants in Malaysia and Sri Lanka eat 200 to 300 plant species from at least 190 plant genera (Abdullah-Fauzi et al. 2022; Mohd-Radzi et al. 2022)

Wild plants

• Grasses (Eisenberg and Lockhart 1972; McKay 1973; Sukumar 1990; Steinheim et al. 2005; Pradhan and Wegge 2007; Abdullah-Fauzi et al. 2022; Packialakshmi et al. 2022)
  • Also sedges (Sukumar 2006)
• Leaves, twigs, and bark (McKay 1973; Sukumar 1990; Steinheim et al. 2005; Sukumar 2006; Pradhan et al. 2008; Koirala et al. 2016)
• Roots and stalks (Koirala et al. 2016)
• Fruits and their seeds (McKay 1973; Sukumar 1990; Kitamura et al. 2007; Wittemyer 2011; Abdullah-Fauzi et al. 2022; Mohd-Radzi et al. 2022)
  • Bananas, figs, wild guava, and tamarind
• Herbs with rhizomes (English, Gillespie, et al. 2014; Yamamoto-Ebina et al. 2016; Mohd-Radzi et al. 2022)
  • E.g., ginger and turmeric
• Spurges, buckthorns, and mallows (Sukumar 2006)
• Legumes (Sukumar 2006)
• Palms (English, Gillespie, et al. 2014; Yamamoto-Ebina et al. 2016; Ong et al. 2023)

Cultivated crops (non-comprehensive list)

• Banana and plantain plants, paddy (wet rice), corn/maize, and sugarcane (McKay 1973; Sukumar 1990; Nyhus et al. 2000; Williams et al. 2001; Sukumar 2003; Chartier et al. 2011; Ekanayaka et al. 2011; Pant et al. 2016; Nowak 2018; Patil and Patil 2019; Thant et al. 2021; Lin et al. 2023)
  • Most commonly reported
• Grains, such as wheats and millets (ragi) (Sukumar 1990; Baskaran and Desai 1996; Williams et al. 2001)
• Nut trees
  • Areca, cashew, nutmeg, and coconut (Sukumar 1990; Nyhus et al. 2000; Patil and Patil 2019; Nair and Jayson 2021; Thant et al. 2021)
• Fruit trees
  • Mango (Nair and Jayson 2021)
  • Pineapple (Thant et al. 2021)
  • Jackfruit (Sukumar 1990; Chartier et al. 2011; Ekanayaka et al. 2011)
• Root vegetable plants
  • Manioc (cassava) (Nyhus et al. 2000; Ekanayaka et al. 2011)
  • Pumpkin (Chartier et al. 2011)
• Teak and bamboo trees
• Oil palm (e.g., Patil and Patil 2019)
• Rubber trees (Chen et al. 2016; Nair and Jayson 2021)
  • Leaves and bark occasionally taken for mineral content
  • Damage mostly incidental, as elephants seek out more palatable crops

Minerals

• Seek out minerals (Steinheim et al. 2005)
  • Salt deposits in soil
  • Calcium in plant bark (Sukumar 2006)
• Migrate to water sources and mineral deposits regularly (and dig up, if necessary

Amount of food eaten

• Consume large amounts of food to offset low digestive efficiency (Fowler and Mikota 2006)
  • Eat many small mouthfuls (McKay 1973)
• Adults thought to eat approximately 1.5 to 2% (dry weight) of their body weight per day (Laws et al. 1975) or possibly up to 10% of their body mass (fresh-mass weight) (Vancuylenberg 1977; Sukumar 1989)
  • About 150 kg (330 lb) per day (needs confirmation; McKay’s estimate based on a 1936 study of E. maximus in managed care) (McKay 1973; Nowak 2018)
• Female elephants may have more diverse diets or be more selective in feeding (Stokke 1999; Abdullah-Fauzi et al. 2022)
  • Possibly influenced by nutritional needs while producing milk for young

Time budget

• Feed for about 17 to 19 hours per day (Vancuylenberg 1977)
  • Sukumar (2006) similarly states that Asian elephants feed for 12 to 18 hours per day
  • Mainly eat in the morning and evening to avoid hottest times of day (Baskaran et al. 2010)
• Also see Activity Patterns

Adaptations for feeding

• Gather food with trunk (McKay 1973)
  • Then insert trunk tip into mouth, chew, and swallow
• Trunk and flexible "finger" at tip allows elephants to eat selectively (or can eat larger amounts at one time) (McKay 1973; Wittemyer 2011)
  • Can grasp a single flower
• Push trees over to expose roots or put food within reach of juvenile herd members (Eisenberg and Lockhart 1972)
• Use feet to break off portions of a branch, crush food, or keep food items in place (McKay 1973; Racine 1980)

Plant-specific foraging strategies

• Grasses
  • Long grasses
    • Grasp blades with trunk and place into mouth (McKay 1973)
  • Short grasses
    • Scrape ground with a forefoot until a pile of grass forms, then sweep pile into mouth with trunk (Eisenberg and Lockhart 1972; McKay 1973)
  • Cleaning
    • Use a twisting motion to dislodge dirt and insects (Krishnan 1972)
    • Smack clumps against leg to knock off dirt
    • Wash clumps in water using trunk
• Shrubs
  • Break off twigs and branches
    • For large branches, use a twisting motion
• Trees
  • Twist off branches and often strip leaves
    • Strip bark from larger branches by inserting into mouth and scraping against molars or tusk, while using a twisting motion
      • Also see Teeth
  • Break and uproot small trees and tree saplings (Ong et al. 2023)

Foraging habitats

• Considered “edge specialists”
  • Often feed on early successional plants (Yamamoto-Ebina et al. 2016; Ong et al. 2023)
  • Readily use human-altered habitats
  • See Habitat
• Dense tree canopies block sunlight and limit the amount of grasses and herbs that can grow (Lin et al. 2023)
  • Poses a challenge to elephants restricted by human activity to dense forest habitats
• May forage along roads (Pan et al. 2009; Chaiyarat et al. 2022)
  • Attracted to food (such as grasses) growing in secondary forests and open roadside habitats (created by logging/road maintenance projects) (Yamamoto-Ebina et al. 2016; Wadey et al. 2018)
  • Also see Threats to Survival

Seasonal changes in feeding

• Asian elephants move to new feeding areas often, usually every few days (Nowak 2018)
• Elephants’ preferred foods change as different plants grow and flowers/fruits ripen (Sukumar 1990; Chen et al. 2006)
  • Select for nutrient content: protein, fiber, sugars, and mineral content
    • Also for palatability/texture, toxicity, etc.
• Dry season
  • Feed mostly on browse plants (when little grass is growing) (Sukumar 1989; Sukumar 1990; Baskaran et al. 2010)
  • Seek large bodies of water (Chaiyarat et al. 2022)
• Wet season
  • Shift to grass after early rains
  • Return to browse feeding after heavy rains, as grass becomes less nutritious

Drinking

• Stay close to water sources, such as streams and waterholes
• Drink every day, when water available (e.g., Eisenberg and Lockhart 1972)
• Prefer fresh, flowing water to muddy water (Vancuylenberg 1977)
• If no water available (e.g., during dry season), dig with forefeet and remove riverbed sand with trunks to expose underground water (Eisenberg and Lockhart 1972; McKay 1973)
  • Wallows created from this digging activity
• Will use ponds and small reservoirs in villages (Sukumar 1990)
• Suction water into trunk and then release into mouth, with head slightly raised, and swallow (Miall and Greenwood 1878; Krishnan 1972; McKay 1973)
  • A large elephant can hold about 2 gallons of water in its trunk; a small elephant, less than 1 gallons (Shoshani, Adler, et al. 1982 “On the dissection…”)
• Drink up to 225 liters (59 gallons) per day
  • Can ingest over 100 liters (26 gallons) at one time

Digestion and scat

• Digestive strategy
  • Pass large amounts of low-quality forage through gastrointestinal tract quickly
  • About 40 to 50% of forage is digested (Shoshani and Eisenberg 1982; Sukumar 2006)
  • Considered a non-ruminant, but has large caecum and colon for hindgut fermentation (Sukumar 2006)
    • Has been said to roughly resemble digestive tract of horses (Hatt and Clauss 2006)
• Excretion
  • In one study, defecated 15 times per day, on average (about every 2 hours) (Vancuylenberg 1977)
    • Wild herd members often defecate at the same time
  • Transit time through intestines is 24 hours (Shoshani and Eisenberg 1982)
  • Also see Ecological Role

Mary (left), an Asian elephant, dines on tree greens with an African elephant named Mila (right) at the San Diego Zoo.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Poole (1996)
Santiapelli & Suprahman (1986)
Sukumar (1989, 1994)