Jimmy Bailey,, age 10, of Trinidad, Texas, for his question:

What is the largest land animal?

The tallest land animal is the 19 foot giraffe. The animal with the biggest mouth is the hippo. But the biggest and the heaviest land animal is Jumbo, the elephant. And the African elephant is quite a bit bigger and heavier than his Indian cousin. The African elephant is the biggest of all land animals, though some of the ocean going whales are much bigger and much heavier.

A grown male African elephant may stand 13 feet at shoulder level and tip the scale at six tons. Big as he is,, this big Jumbo can move through the dense brush of his forest as quietly as a eat.