Animal with the most neurons

What to remember

The African elephant is the animal with the most neurons: 257,000,000,000 in its brain and whole nervous system, about three times as many as a human.

That number does not make it three times as intelligent as we are. Its cerebral cortex, the structure most closely linked to intelligence, holds only 5.6 billion neurons, a third of the 16 billion in the human cortex. The human brain contains 86 billion neurons, 80% of them in the cerebellum. These figures are estimates, calculated by multiplying the density of neurons by the average brain volume of the animal.

African elephants make up the genus Loxodonta, which comprises two living species: the African bush elephant and the smaller African forest elephant. Both are social herbivores with grey skin, and they differ in the size and colour of their tusks as well as the shape and size of their ears and skulls. The name Loxodonta refers to the lozenge-shaped enamel of their molar teeth. As of 2021, the bush elephant was considered endangered and the forest elephant critically endangered.