Although male elephants are capable of reproducing by 14 to 17 years
of age, your adult males are usually unsuccessful in competing with
their larger elders for the attention of receptive females. Since
male elephants continue to grow throughout their lifetimes, and since
larger males tend to be more successful at mating, the males most
likely to pass their genes to future generations are those whose
characteristics enable them to live long lives. Joyce Poole studied a
population of African elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, for
8 years. This data frame contains the number of successful matings
and ages (at the study's beginning) of 41 male elephants.