Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

Section 2: BIOLOGY AND FIELD DATA
A: BIOLOGY
2.1 Taxonomy
Order Probosicidea
Family Elephantidae
Genera Loxodonta (African elephant)
Elephas (Asian elephant)
Species Loxodonta africana (African elephants)
Elephas maximus (Asian elephants)
SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES
Detailed information on elephant taxonomy and morphology can be found in
texts such as Nowak, (1991) (Sukumar 2003) Taxonomists have studied and
revised the classification of elephants for many years and numerous
subspecies have been described of which most represent no more than the
normal variations to be expected in an animal with such a wide distribution.
For the purpose of this publication what is considered the basic and most
relevant information is provided.
Loxodonta: in historical times the African elephant occurred throughout
Africa from the Mediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, except in parts
of the Sahara and some other desert regions (Nowak 1991). The forest
elephants of the Congo Basin and West Africa are so unlike the other African
elephants that they have been considered a separate subspecies L. a. cyclotis
from the bush elephant, L. a. africana. However recent research at the Natural
History Museum in Paris, from studies of mitochondrial DNA, suggests that
the forest elephant is sufficiently different to be classed as a separate species
(Barriel et al 1999) (Day 2000). This is supported by work on DNA sequences
in nuclear genes (Roca et al 2001), work on skull measurement and on social
organisation (Grubb et al 2000) (Tangley 1997). There are reports of another
species of small elephant L. pumilo, in dense lowland forest from Sierra Leone
to Democratic Republic of Congo, but most consider this to be small forest
elephants (Nowak 1991) (Haltenorth and Diller 1977). In 2002 it was further
suggested that the elephants of West African comprised a third species, thus
much more work needs to be carried out in this area (Sukumar 2003)
Elephas: the genus probably occurred in historical time from Syria and Iraq to
Indochina and the Malay Peninsula, to China as far as the Yangtze River and
Sri Lanka, Sumatra and possibly Java. However there have been suggestions
that the elephants of ancient Syria were in fact Loxodonta. The Asian elephant
has been divided into a number of subspecies and the validity of many is
doubtful. The elephant of Sri Lanka Elephas maximus maximus is the type
specimen. Asian elephants are commonly assigned three subspecies
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