An elephant’s social life is organised around a family unit, which consists of an adult female and her offspring and two or more closely related females and their offspring. Bulls leave the family unit at puberty when they are about 16 years old and join bachelor groups or move about alone.
The best guide for determining sex is to look at their head profiles; males have a rounded head and females a squarer head. At birth, an elephant calf weighs 118kg (260 pounds) and is able to walk under its mothers belly for the first year. Elephants spend 16-18 hours a day grazing and browsing, from ground level to 18 feet or more into trees, when standing on their hind legs and stretching out their long trunks. They also use their trunks to squirt water into their mouths at seven litres a sip! In a full drinking session elephants take up to 50 litres of water.
 
The flapping action of their ears when charging is thought to be merely a cooling action as the stress of the moment causes them to become overheated. The advantage of this is that it helps them to look even more fearsome to their enemies. Elephants are unfortunately very destructive feeders and often large trees are pushed over and only a few leaves eaten from the top. If too many are confined to a small area, massive damage and deforestation can and does indeed occur, especially in the Luangwa Valley.

Of all its specialized features, the muscular trunk is the most remarkable it serves as a nose, a hand, an extra foot, a signaling device and a tool for gathering food, siphoning water, dusting, digging and a variety of other functions. Not only does the long trunk permit the elephant to reach as high as 23 feet, but it can also perform movements as delicate as picking berries or caressing a companion. It is capable, too, of powerful twisting and coiling movements used for tearing down trees or fighting.

Elephants are generally gregarious and form small family groups consisting of an older matriarch and three or four offspring, along with their young. It was once thought that family groups were led by old bull elephants, but these males are most often solitary. The female family groups are often visited by mature males checking for females in estrus. Several interrelated family groups may inhabit an area and know each other well. When they meet at watering holes and feeding places, they greet each other affectionately. Smell is the most highly developed sense, but sound deep growling or rumbling noises is the principle means of communication. Some researchers think that each individual has its signature growl by which it can be distinguished. Sometimes elephants communicate with an ear-splitting blast when in danger or alarmed, causing others to form a protective circle around the younger members of the family group. Elephants make low-frequency calls, many of which, though loud, are too low for humans to hear. These sounds allow elephants to communicate with one another at distances of five or six miles. ^Travel Tips

Hippos are plentiful in Zambia’s many waterways and often groups of over 60 can be seen in one spot, especially along the Luangwa River where the official count is 48 per kilometre of river.

They are vegetarian animals, feeding mainly at night and returning to lounge in the water before sunrise. They pluck grass with their wide lips but are also known to eat the fruit and flowers of the sausage tree. They consume up to 60kg of grass every night.

A calf is suckled on land and then in the water and begins to graze at four to six months. It reaches maturity at four years and has a life span of about forty years.In areas where overcrowding is intense, aggression increases. They have a strict territorial system within which bulls are continually fighting for dominance. Their large tusks are used as weapons of attack or defence.

The back is a purplish grey-brown, with the undersides pinkish.  There are patches of pink on the face, especially around the eyes, ears, and cheeks.  The hide is virtually hairless, and is moistened by mucous glands which secrete a reddish liquid.  The body is bulky and barrel-like, and is supported by stubby legs. The large, wide head has the eyes, nostrils and ears set on the top, allowing them to remain above water while the hippo is submerged.  The mouth is widely split and can be opened extremely wide, exposing the canines, which are large and curved.

The river hippopotamus spends most of the day wallowing, resting, and swimming in or near water.  At night, they emerge from the water to graze.  Hippos will graze about 3 kilometers / 1.8 miles from water, although some individuals move farther inland.  An individual may walk 10 kilometers / 6 miles to seek food on land, spending an average of 5-6 hours on land per night. Despite their bulk, they can run extremely fast.  The river hippo's daily consumption is 1-1.5 percent of its body weight, compared to an average of 2.5 percent for most other ungulates.

The tallest animal in the world with long neck, long legs and long sloping back. They are gregarious mammals and move in herds of up to 20.

Ancient cultures in Africa revered the giraffe, as some modern cultures do today, and commonly depicted it in prehistoric rock and cave paintings. Unknown outside of Africa, this animal so excited man's curiosity that it was sometimes sent as a diplomatic gift to other countries; one of the earliest records tells of a giraffe going from "Melinda" (presumably Malindi) in Kenya to China in 1415.

The giraffe (as well as its short-necked relative the okapi from Central African forests) has a distinctive walking gait, moving both legs on one side forward at the same time. At a gallop, however, the gait changes, and the giraffe simultaneously swings the hind legs ahead of and outside the front legs, reaching speeds of 35 miles an hour. Its heavy head moves forward with each powerful stride, then swings back to stay balanced.

They browse on a great variety of trees using their prehensile upper lip and long tongue to grasp the vegetation. Their average height is over four and a half meters and they often weigh over 1200kg.

 They breed at any time but usually at the end of the rains having a gestation period of 15 months and only one offspring per birth. Giraffes have a highly efficient blood circulation system. Their heart beat is 150 times/min as compared to an elephant at 25 times. This prevents dizziness when they move their heads up and down on average through 18 feet when drinking water. ^Travel Tips