Posted Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:24 pm

Tiny, colorful and delicate, tens of thousands of origami elephants are on display at the Bronx Zoo in a Guinness record-setting show of support for the majestic but vulnerable animals killed every day by ivory hunters.

People from all 50 U.S. states and 40 foreign countries have sent a colossal total of 204,481 origami elephants to the Bronx Zoo in a campaign to “save elephants from extinction by ending the ivory trade,” the zoo said in a statement.

The origami elephants came “from an incredibly diverse array of folders including a 109 year old woman, students from a school [for] the deaf, as well as participants from Iran, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and 37 other countries,” the zoo said.

More than 78,564 were mounted and included in a display, which earned a Guinness World Records title this month, representatives from the zoo and its “96 Elephants Campaign” said.

The name of the campaign is intended to honor an estimated 96 elephants that are killed in Africa every day for their ivory, according to figures cited by Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo. Over the course of a year, this amounts to 35,000 elephants slain by poachers.

“WCS’s Bronx Zoo received these gems of folded paper from all over the world and assembled them into this gorgeous display as a simple gesture that sends a powerful message to the world that we are standing together to save these majestic animals,” said John Calvelli, a vice president of the conservation society and the director of the 96 Elephants Campaign, in a statement.

The 96 Elephants Campaign worked with OrigamiUSA to organize the effort, the conservation society said in a statement. It received additional support from Asia Society, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Boy Scouts of America Greater New York Councils, Children’s Museum of the Arts, Girl Scout Council of Greater New York, Japan Society, Origamodo, and Tuttle Publishing.

The world’s new record of 78,564 origami elephants on display earned the official Guinness World Records count certificate on Nov. 17, the twelfth annual Guinness World Records Day, the zoo said.

The full display will not be open to the public “due to the sheer size,” the zoo said, but many of the origami elephants will be incorporated into a holiday exhibit that will be open for public viewing through the end of December.

To plan your trip or to learn more about the Bronx Zoo, head online to bronxzoo.com. To help the campaign against elephant poaching by creating a digital origami elephant, visit www.96elephants.org.