The Elephants of the Genus Loxodonta - African Elephants

African elephant

Main articles: African elephant, African bush elephant, and African forest elephant

Elephant crossing a river, Kenya.

African bush (savanna) elephant in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Video of elephants in the wild

The Elephants of the genus Loxodonta, known collectively as African elephants, are currently found in 37 countries in Africa.

African elephants are distinguished from Asian elephants in several ways, the most noticeable being their much larger ears. Also, the African elephant is typically larger than the Asian elephant and has a concave back. In Asian elephants, only males have tusks, but both males and females of African elephants have tusks and are usually less hairy than their Asian cousins.

African elephants have traditionally been classified as a single species comprising two distinct subspecies, namely the savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana africana) and the forest elephant (Loxodonta africana cyclotis), but recent DNA analysis suggests that these may actually constitute distinct species.[22] This split is not universally accepted by experts.[23] A third species of African elephant has also been proposed.[24]

The authors of an analysis of nuclear DNA extracted from "African savanna elephant, African forest elephant, Asian elephant, the extinct American mastodon, and the woolly mammoth" concluded in 2010 that African savanna and forest elephants are indeed separate species:

We unequivocally establish that the Asian elephant is the sister species to the woolly mammoth. A surprising finding from our study is that the divergence of African savanna and forest elephants--which some have argued to be two populations of the same species--is about as ancient as the divergence of Asian elephants and mammoths. Given their ancient divergence, we conclude that African savanna and forest elephants should be classified as two distinct species.[25]

This reclassification has implications for conservation. If there are two separate species, each will be less abundant (particularly the rarer) and could be more endangered than a more numerous and wide-ranging single species. There is also a potential danger that if the forest elephant is not explicitly listed as an endangered species, poachers and smugglers might be able to evade the law forbidding trade in endangered animals and their products.

The forest elephant and the savanna elephant can hybridize (interbreed), though their preferences for different terrains reduce such opportunities. As the African elephant has only recently been recognized to comprise two separate species, groups of captive elephants have not been comprehensively classified and some could well be hybrids.

Under the new two species classification, Loxodonta africana refers specifically to the savanna elephant, the largest of all elephants. It is the largest land animal, with males standing 3.2 metres (10 ft) to 4 metres (13 ft) at the shoulder and weighing 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb) up to a reported 12,000 kilograms (26,000 lb).[26] The female is smaller, standing about 3 metres (9.8 ft) at the shoulder.[27] Most often, savanna elephants are found in open grasslands, marshes, and lakeshores. They range over much of the savanna zone south of the Sahara.

The other putative species, the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), is usually smaller and rounder, and its tusks thinner and straighter compared with the savanna elephant. The forest elephant can weigh up to 4,500 kilograms (9,900 lb) and stand about 3 metres (10 ft) tall. Much less is known about these animals than their savanna cousins, because environmental and political obstacles make them difficult to study. Normally, they inhabit the dense African rain forests of central and western Africa, although occasionally they roam the edges of forests, thus overlapping the savanna elephant home ranges and hybridizing. In 1979, Iain Douglas-Hamilton estimated the continental population of African elephants at around 1.3 million animals.[28] This estimate is controversial and is believed to be a gross overestimate,,[29] but it is very widely cited and has become a de facto baseline that continues to be incorrectly used to quantify downward population trends in the species. Through the 1980s, Loxodonta received worldwide attention due to the dwindling numbers of major populations in East Africa, largely as a result of poaching. According to IUCN's African Elephant Status Report 2007,[30] there are between 470,000 and 690,000 African elephants in the wild. Although this estimate only covers about half of the total elephant range, experts do not believe the true figure to be much higher, as it is unlikely that large populations remain to be discovered.[31] By far, the largest populations are now found in southern and eastern Africa, which together account for the majority of the continental population. According to a recent analysis by IUCN experts, most major populations in eastern and southern Africa are stable or have been steadily increasing since the mid-1990s, at an average rate of 4.5% per year.[31][32]

Elephant populations in West Africa, on the other hand, are generally small and fragmented, and only account for a small proportion of the continental total.[33] Much uncertainty remains as to the size of the elephant population in central Africa, where the prevalence of forest makes population surveys difficult, but poaching for ivory and bushmeat is believed to be intense through much of the region.[34] South African elephant population more than doubled, rising from 8,000 to over 20,000, in the thirteen years after a 1995 ban on the trade in elephant ivory.[35] The ban on the ivory trade in southern Africa (but not elsewhere) was lifted in February 2008, sparking controversy among environmental groups.[citation needed]

Asian elephant

A temple elephant in Kerala, India.

Main article: Asian elephant

The Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, is smaller than the African. It has smaller ears, and typically, only the males have large external tusks.

The world population of Asian elephants--also called Indian elephants--is estimated to be around 60,000, about a tenth of the number