Student Questions at Base Camp Discovery

Anonymous Student Asks:

What is the biggest animal at the Zoo?

This is a tricky question depending on what you mean by the biggest. The heaviest animal that we have at the Zoo is Tuffy, our bull African Elephant. Tuffy is approximately ten feet tall at the shoulder and weighs around 9500 pounds. Our three female elephants range from 7100 to 8000 pounds and from seven and a half to nine feet tall at the shoulder. Samson, our two and half-year old elephant, weighs in at close to 2000 pounds which makes him heavier than any other animals at the Zoo except the two white rhinoceroses, which weigh between 4000 and 4700 pounds, and the other elephants.

Our tallest animal is Zoe, the reticulated giraffe. Zoe is just under sixteen feet tall. Someday, she will likely be outgrown by Caesar, our young male giraffe. Male giraffes can grow to over nineteen feet tall.