African Bush Elephant Elephant in the Rotunda being cleaned

Standing before you is the largest mounted specimen of the world’s largest living land animal. He was about 55 years old when killed by big game hunter Josef J. Fénykövi in Angola in 1955. Elephants are under threat from poaching largely due to illegal ivory trade, as well as from habitat loss. Today, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Insitute is involved in the study and conservation of elephants in both the wild and in captive populations.

• Height: 13ft 2in (4 m) tall at the shoulder
• Estimated weight when alive: nearly 24,000 lbs (11 metric tons)
• His ivory tusks weigh about 93 lbs each (42 kg)—too heavy to mount, so those on display are fiberglass replicas.

Taxidermist Frank Greenwell cleans the Fénykövi elephant in the Rotunda at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.