Debra Ellis, age 8, of Plainfield, Ind., for her question:

How long does an elephant live?

A baby elephant takes almost two years to develop inside his mother's body. When he is born he weighs 200 pounds and stands three feet high. Junior Jumbo is almost always an only child. He is a grown up elephant when he reaches his 20th birthday  but he can expect many years of happy living. An Indian elephant may be trained to work along with his human friends, but an African elephant will , live in the wilds.

The Indian elephant tends to live longer than his wild cousin the wild African elephant can expect to live only about 50 years.

A working elephant usually lives with a close human friend called a mahout. A boy and a teen age elephant start their training together. The boy mahout feeds and teaches, scrubs and tends to, all the elephant's needs and the two are devoted friends. The elephant may live 70 years sometimes he outlives his  mahout.