African Elephant
The two elephant species of Africa, the largest land animals alive and both at risk of extinction.
via Wikipedia: African elephant · see source
African elephants make up the genus Loxodonta, which contains two living species: the African bush elephant and the smaller African forest elephant. Both are social, grey-skinned herbivores, but they differ in their tusks, ears and skull shape. The bush elephant is the largest animal living on land. Both species are threatened: as of 2021 the IUCN Red List classes the bush elephant as endangered and the forest elephant as critically endangered, with habitat loss, fragmentation and poaching for ivory driving their decline.
Quick Facts
- Type species
- Elephas africana
Facts from the source article.
Background
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach wrote the first scientific description in 1797, naming the animal Elephas africanus. Frédéric Cuvier proposed the genus name Loxodonte in 1825, and the Latin form Loxodonta followed in 1827. The name comes from Greek words for slanting and tooth, after the lozenge-shaped enamel on the molars. Paul Matschie described the forest form from Cameroon in 1900, and Glover Morrill Allen treated it as a separate species in 1936; genetic studies have since backed that split, dating the divergence to 2.6 – 5.6 million years ago. In Africa the fossil record of Loxodonta reaches back to the Late Miocene, and the oldest known species, Loxodonta cookei, lived around 7–5 million years ago.
Did You Know?
- The largest recorded bull stood 3.96 m at the shoulder and was estimated at 10.4 t.
- A third species, the West African elephant, has been proposed but is unconfirmed.
- An elephant can lift about 3% of its own body weight with its trunk.
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