How much do elephants eat?

As the largest land mammals on Earth, adult elephants consume up to 300 pounds of food in a single day. A variety of bark, fruits, grasses and roots make up the majority of an elephant's diet.

Large quantities of food are needed to sustain their massive bodies, which weigh 5,000 to 14,000 pounds. Elephants rarely sleep, and they graze in herds over great distances to meet their daily requirements for sustenance. The beasts use a giant trunk that employs 100,000 different muscles for grabbing hard-to-reach items, and they use their ivory tusks to dig for food and strip bark from trees.