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Wild Elephant, Siliguri, West Bengal, India
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Diet
Elephants are herbivores, and spend up to 16 hours a day eating plants. Their diets are highly variable, both seasonally and across habitats and regions. Elephants are primarily browsers, feeding on the leaves, bark, and fruits of trees and shrubs, but they may also eat considerable grasses and herbs. As is true for other nonruminant unglulates, elephants only digest approximately 40% of what they eat. They make up for their digestive systems' lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant consumes 140–270 kg (300–600 lb) of food a day.
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