How does a 37-foot-tall robotic elephant run amok? Very slowly, and with lots of help. The Sultan’s Elephant, seen here in central London at a performance by the French street theater company Royal de Luxe, weighs 46 tons – five times heavier than an actual African elephant – and needs 22 operators to tame its diesel-and-electric-powered animatronics, which can make it “gallop” at 1 mph, shuffle sideways, and spray water from its trunk. Industrial artist François Delarozière built the jumbo Dumbo for a Royal de Luxe show celebrating the anniversary of author Jules Verne’s death. The pachydroid is scheduled to stampede back to France this fall. Guess he’s just big in Europe.

Pachyderms by the Numbers

• Weight of an adult male elephant’s trunk: 290 pounds

• Weight the trunk can lift: 550 pounds

• An elephant’s top speed: 25 mph

• Peanuts grown in the US in 2005: 4.8 billion pounds

– James Lee



credit:Getty Images

A 46-ton robotic elephant.

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