It is the largest land animal on the planet: the African savanna elephant. A male can weigh six tons and stand over three meters tall. Its giant ears work like an air conditioner: when it flaps them, they cool the blood circulating through them. And although we cannot hear it, elephants are talking all the time: they make sounds so low that they travel for kilometers, and they even “listen” with their feet, sensing vibrations in the ground. They live in families led by the matriarch, the most experienced female, who remembers paths and water sources for decades. And their calves are worth the wait: gestation lasts almost two years. Today it is endangered by poaching and habitat loss. A world without elephants would be a world with less savanna.