In celebration of Elephant Appreciation Day: Why elephants are special

It's Elephant Appreciation Day - and we're celebrating the largest and most-loved land mammal in the world.

First of all, here are five things that make elephants very very special

1) Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and dolphins. They appear to have self-awareness, recognising themselves in the mirror, and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind.

2) Elephants really do have an excellent memory: the size of their hippocampus, the part of the brain where memories are stored, is relatively very large.

3) Having larges brains means that elephants are highly intelligent. They have their own language, and form strong bonds with each other.

4) It takes about a year for a young elephant to learn how to use its trunk, which has 40,000 muscles and tendons. They often trip over it at first.

5) They can live to be in their 70s.

Elephants are facing huge threats to their survival. African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered.

One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks.

Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people.

See also: World Elephant Day: Baby rescued after horrific poaching attack

See also: Ostrich gives baby elephant a run for its money

A number of charities are working to protect them. You can petition against elephants being used in the tourism industries at change.org.

You can donate to the wonderful work carried out by Wildlife SOS here.

And you can even adopt an elephant from £3 a month with WWF, and help the organisation safeguard their habitats and futures.

You can also help elephants by using #ElephantAppreciationDay on social media, and visiting events organised at your local zoo.

Some of our favourite elephant moments over the last year include the time a baby elly tried out its charging tactics on a group of safari tourists - before changing its mind and running back to mum.

A baby elephant had a really splashing time playing in water with its twin at a zoo in Jakarta back in February.

And in March, a female showed her amazing motherly love as she saved her baby from a muddy waterhole.

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