The African Elephant (the journey begins)

Very well, let me be the first to recollect several examples of sentences that first year students had to write on: "The African Elephant".

• African elephants have periods of 22 months.
• A matriarch is a female patriarch.
• The African elephant travels at speeds of 120 kilograms an hour.
• The African elephant spends approximately 60 years on this earth, and then dies [presumably moving on to a better world?].
• Matriarchs are cows. [So are several students, but whatever...]