Longest Gestation Periods in Mammals
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Longest Gestation Periods in MammalsThe African elephant (670 days) tops the list, carrying its young for well over twice as long as a human (270 days) and more than ten times longer than a dog. A clear pattern links body size and gestation: the largest animals - elephant, sperm whale (535), white rhinoceros (467) and walrus (456) - occupy the top of the list, as bigger offspring simply take longer to develop. The giraffe (430) and Bactrian camel (390) follow, while familiar domestic animals cluster lower: donkey (365), horse (336) and cow (283) all sit near or just above the human figure. The range shows how mammalian reproduction scales with size, with the biggest species investing almost two years in a single pregnancy.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia - List of Mammalian Gestation Durations
- Coverage
- 10 entities · 10 observations
- Measure
- Gestation Period (days)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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