What is the difference between elephants

Natural history. Opinion Editorial. The three species of elephants from left to right: African savannah elephant Loxodonta africana , Asian elephant Elephas maximus , and the African forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis Did you know that there are three species of elephants in the world?

A revised tree showing phylogenetic relationships among living and extinct members of the elephant family, colour-coded by their presumed geographical range. Image credit: Meyer et al. Join us as we take a look at the main differences between the African, Asian and forest elephant: African savannah elephants Loxodonta africana drinking at a waterhole Size The savannah elephant is the largest of the three species — also the largest living terrestrial animal in the world — with bulls growing up to over 3 metres in height and weighing up to 8, kg.

Asian elephant Elephas maximus in a forest in Asia Head shape Savannah elephants have fuller, more rounded heads. Asian and African elephants have distinctly different head shapes, making them easy to tell apart from a distance.

African elephants have fuller, more rounded heads, and the top of their head is a single dome shape. Asian elephants have a twin-domed head with an indent running up the center of their head. The Asian elephant right has a clear double dome at the top of its head. Perhaps an even more obvious way to distinguish an African vs Asian elephant from a distance is to look at their ears. African elephants have much larger ears, shaped a little like the continent of Africa. Both elephant species use their ears to dissipate body heat, and as African elephants live in hotter climates with more direct sunlight than Asian elephants they need to dissipate more heat.

Hence the larger ears:. The African elephant left has much larger ears, shaped like the African continent. The African elephant is the larger of the two elephants, with bulls growing up to 4 meters tall. By contrast, the biggest Asian males reach no more than 3. Because of the differences in their size, adult African elephants weigh between 4, and 8,kg, whilst Asian elephants are lighter, weighing in at between and 6,kg.

Not all elephants have tusks. Both male and female African elephants can have tusks, but only male Asian elephants have tusks. Female Asian elephants have rudimentary tusks called tushes , which can be also found in some males.

Without pressures from predators and competitors, for example, species isolated on islands can shrink in just tens of thousands of years—a blink of the eye in evolutionary time. Elephants have experienced such transitions before, producing animals like the "pygmy" Asian elephant of Borneo , which isn't considered a separate species, despite its relatively short, round shape.

See pictures of Borneo pygmy elephants at risk due to deforestation. A study in the journal Science included the first DNA evidence that the savanna and forest elephants are separate species. But then other studies showed that at least a small number of savanna elephants shared mitochondrial DNA—genetic information passed down from only mothers—with forest elephants. This "proved there was some interbreeding within at least the past , years," Reich explained. But that limited interbreeding isn't evidence that the two elephant types are from the same species, he said.

It's just an example of interspecies hybridization, relatively common in the animal world, ha added. The key to the new discovery was some "cold case" genetics work on ancient, extinct elephant relatives: the woolly mammoth and the mastodon. The mastodon's nuclear genome, in particular, was sequenced for the first time for the study. Related: "Mammoths to Return? The genomes of five distinct animals—the Asian elephant, African savanna elephant, African forest elephant, woolly mammoth, and American mastodon—were then compared and contrasted.

The results showed that "in fact these [African elephant] populations diverged long ago and are at least as different as Asian elephants and mammoths—and those two are not only different species but entirely different genera," Reich said.

The apparent new species discovery is more than just cocktail party fodder for geneticists—it may have important conservation and management implications. If Africa's elephants are from two distinct species, then each has a smaller population than previously believed. In this case, forest elephants may be of particular concern, because far less is known about their population status.

Size of the Ears It is said that you can tell where an elephant comes from by looking at the size of his ears. Tusks All African elephants, male and female, have tusks — whereas only some male Asian elephants have tusks. Toenails Toenails in the two different species of African elephants vary. Facebook View on Facebook. Show error Error: Error validating application.

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