#ElephantTuesdays: Elephant species 🐘

 Although there used to exist species of elephants on earth, we can unfortunately confirm three occurring currently in Asia and Africa:

Elephas maximus (Asian elephant)

Loxodonta africana (African bush elephant)

           Loxodonta cyclotis (African forest elephant)

Sometimes it might appear easy to distinguish between all three species, or at least between the African and Asian sp., but actually it can be sometimes tricky. If you have a look at the following table, you will notice that in general, African sp. are a bit bigger and heavier than their Asian relatives. But if you are not in Asia or Africa, but in front of an elephant far from their natural habitat (like a zoo) this feature alone can be confusing, as it obviously depends on the individual´s age and physical condition. So one thing that usually helps is the size of their ears, and their head´s shape. In African elephants, their ears reach up over the neck, and the head shape is basically round.

The main morphological differences between the African and Asian elephant species are:

	Loxodonta sp.	Elephas maximus
Weight	4.000-7.000 Kg	3.000-6.000
Height (shoulder height)	3-4 m.	2-3,5 m.
Skin	wrinkled	Relatively smooth
Ears	Bigger	smaller
Tusks	Existing in both sexes	Females have no tusks or only rudimentary
Trunk	2 fingertips/ very wrinkled/more flexible	1 fingertip/less wrinkled/less flexible
Shape of the back	Concave	Convex (sometimes even straight)
Toenails	Forelegs: 4 (sometimes 5) Hind legs: 3 (sometimes 4)	Forelegs: 5 Hind legs: 4 (sometimes 5)
Belly shape	slopes diagonally downwards towards its hind legs	Round/straight, horizontal
Head shape	round	Two bulges

Interesting as it might be, yet our concern here is not about how to differentiate between African or Asian ele. but how to tell apart the two African species.

Just a short summary of physical African elephant traits:

	Loxodonta africana	Loxodonta cyclotis
Weight	4.000 - 7.000 Kg	2.000 - 4.500 kg
Height (shoulder height)	3-4 m.	2 - 3 m
Skin	wrinkled/ less and shorter hairs	Smoother/long hairs, long eyelashes
Ears	cuts usually are individual; the older they get, the more folded the ear can be shape of the African continent	cuts usually are individual; the older they get, the more folded the ear can be  round
Tusks	both sexes males have stronger ones usually curved, thicker	both sexes males have stronger ones more or less straight downwards, thinner
Trunk	2 finger tip	2 finger tip
Toenails	Forelegs: 4 Hind legs: 3	Forelegs: 5 Hind legs: 4

Asian elephant:

 African bush elephant (Source):

African forest elephant:

Original videos: ACP00022ho, ACP0002cpg

But these are only numbers and approximations, necessary when it comes to taxonomy, but in nature things don´t always work that way; in fact, there´s been controversy between taxonomists when claiming differences between both African species. 

 As a curiosity: years ago, local people and hunters, claimed to exist another species of elephants occurring in Africa, the Pygmy elephant. There was some controversy about this fact, some researchers agreed, some didn´t, and years later those individuals that were seen and thought to be pygmy elephants, happened to be the infants of the African forest species, so the new “discovery” was finally rejected. 

We have been often asked if there is a difference in behavior between all three species, and honestly, we are never really sure what to say. There are plenty of different opinions: some believe that Asian elephants are thought to be more docile than the African species, others don´t; the Africans are thought to be a bit more “dirty” than the Asians (they like to take their own poo and put it on their backs). It is also said that the African forest elephants tend to accumulate food on their backs, while the African bush elephants don´t do it that often… and we have witnessed it: see what the lovely forest elephant Can from the Abidjan zoo likes to do with her food:

Call them what you will, we personally don´t mind if they have big or small ears, thin or thick tusks, if they are clean, dirty, docile or fierce… 

THEY ARE ALL AMAZING AND INTERESTING CREATURES IN ALL THEIR VERSIONS. 

References: 
Kalinga Animal Shelter: http://www.kalinga.eu/page/de/home/index.html 
Upali: http://www.upali.ch/differences_en.html