So, how fast DO elephants walk/run?

'Thanks to a traveling fellowship from the [i]Journal of Experimental Biology[/i], Hutchinson and Famini went to Thailand in 2000 and 2001 to put some elephants to the test.

For their experiments, Hutchinson palpated the animals' limbs to find their joints, and then the duo marked the joints with large dots of water-soluble, nontoxic paint. They videotaped 188 trials of 42 Asian elephants walking and running through a 100-foot course and measured their speed with photosensors and video analysis.

The average walking speed was 4.5 mph. But 32 of the elephants moved faster than previously documented -- up to 15 mph. Three were especially fleet of foot, exceeding 15 mph -- 50 percent faster than anyone had ever reliably recorded, Hutchinson said.

Past references gave anecdotes, not data. The result was a lot of confusion about elephant speeds.'

From: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/03/elephants49.html