African Elephants: Massive Tusked Mammals

by Rebecca E. Hirsch

Overview

Find out what an African elephant has in common with a wildebeest. Learn what sets an African elephant apart from a snow leopard. Readers will compare and contrast key traits of African elephants—their appearance, behavior, habitat, and life cycle—to traits of other mammals. Charts and sidebars support key ideas and provide details. Through gathering information about similarities and differences, readers will make connections and draw conclusions about what makes this animal a mammal and how mammals are alike and different from each other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467760591
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2015
Series:	Comparing Animal Traits Series
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.13(d)
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 9 Years

About the Author

Rebecca E. Hirsch is an award- winning children's author with a PhD in plant biology. Her picture books include Plants Can't Sit Still and Night Creatures: Animals That Swoop, Crawl, and Creep while You Sleep. She lives with her husband and three children in State College, Pennsylvania. You can visit her online at rebeccahirsch.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction Meet the African Elephant 4

Chapter 1 What Do African Elephants Look Like? 6

Chapter 2 Where Do African Elephants Live? 12

Chapter 3 Life in the Elephant Herd 18

Chapter 4 The Life Cycle Of African Elephants 24

African Elephand Trait Chart 30

Glossary 31

Selected Bibliography 32

Further Information 32

Index 32

Editorial Reviews

"The unusual comparison of mammal traits makes this a series worth considering."―School Library Journal, Series Made Simple

From the Publisher

04/01/2015
Gr 3–5—After establishing basic concepts, four chapters cover physical characteristics, habitat, unique behaviors and life cycle. Each chapter begins with a description of the titled animal, then goes on to compare the subject with several different animals. Grizzly bears are compared to wolverines, three-banded armadillos, wild boars, black-footed ferrets, striped skunks, American bison, jaguars, and titi monkeys. A chart in each chapter summarizes traits of the featured animal with one of the compared animals. A final chart uses six traits to compare all nine animals, three of which are characteristic of all mammals, the others of which are more species specific, such as hibernation (for grizzlies). Other than quibbles with the inconsistent use of scientific terms in the glossaries, the information is, for the most part, clear and consistent. VERDICT The unusual comparison of mammal traits makes this a series worth considering.

School Library Journal