What type of diet do elephants have?

Elephants have a herbivorous diet.

They eat plant material rather than meat, including grasses, leaves, twigs, bark, roots, fruit, and other vegetation. Their enormous bodies require extensive feeding, and elephants may spend much of the day searching for and processing plants. Their large molars are adapted for grinding tough, fibrous food.

Different elephant species and populations feed in different ways. African bush elephants are mixed feeders, combining grazing on grasses with browsing on woody plants. African forest elephants consume leaves, bark, and many kinds of fruit, while Asian elephants often rely heavily on grasses but also eat foliage, bark, roots, and cultivated crops where their ranges overlap with people.

Herbivorous does not mean nutritionally simple. Elephants also seek mineral-rich waterholes, termite mounds, and salt licks to supplement their plant-based diet. Their feeding has major ecological effects: by spreading seeds, opening paths, uprooting trees, and shaping vegetation, they can function as keystone species in their habitats.