Asian Elephant - BirdForum Opus

Elephas maximus

Photo by Alok Tewari
Male showing musth (temporin), Jim Corbett National Park (Uttaranchal), India, June-2016

Identification

• The Asian Elephant is smaller than the African Elephant and has the highest body point on the head.
• The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally.
• The feet have more nail-like structures than those of African Elephants — five on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot.

Distribution

The species occurs in :

• Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, in South Asia.
• Cambodia, China, Indonesia (Kalimantan and Sumatra), Lao PDR, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah), Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam in South-east Asia.
• Feral populations occur on some of the Andaman Islands (India).

Taxonomy

Photo by Alok Tewari
Matriarchal family, Jim Corbett National Park (Uttaranchal), India, June-2016

A definitive subspecific classification awaits a detailed range-wide morphometric and genetic study.
While subspecies taxonomy of Elephas maximus has varied among authors, the most recent treatment recognizes three subspecies:

• E. m. indicus on the Asian mainland
  
• E. m. maximus on Sri Lanka
  
• E. m. sumatranus on the Indonesian island of Sumatra
  
• Borneo's elephants have traditionally been included in E. m. indicus or E. m. sumatranus.

Habitat

• They occur in grassland, tropical evergreen forest, semi-evergreen forest, moist deciduous forest, dry deciduous forested and dry thorn forest, in addition to cultivated and secondary forests and scrub-lands.
• Over this range of habitat types elephants are seen from sea level to over 3,000 m asl. In the Eastern Himalaya in northeast India, they regularly move up above 3,000 m asl in summer at a few sites

Behaviour

• Elephants form deep family bonds and live in tight matriarchal family groups of related females called a herd.
• Herds consist of 8-100 individuals depending on terrain and family size.
• Males leave the family unit between the ages of 12-15.
• Recent discoveries have shown that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing a sub-sonic rumble that can travel over the ground faster than sound through air.

References

• J. Shoshani and J. F. Eisenberg. 1982. Elephas maximus. Mammalian Species 182:1-8

[J. Alroy/J. Alroy/J. Alroy]

• Sukumar 2003

J Mammal (2004) 85 (3): 581-582

• https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/85/3/581/902447/Sukumar-R-2003-The-Living-Elephants-Evolutionary
• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.01860.x/abstract

Photo by Alok Tewari
Mock-fight among Immature Males, Jim Corbett National Park (Uttaranchal), India, June-2016

• Shoshani, J; Eisenberg, J. F. (1982). "Elephas maximus" (PDF). Mammalian Species. 182 (182): 1–8. doi:10.2307/3504045. JSTOR 3504045.
• Wikipedia
• Choudhury, A.; Lahiri Choudhury, D.K.; Desai, A.;

Duckworth, J.W.; Easa, P.S.; Johnsingh, A.J.T.; Fernando, P.; Hedges, S.; Gunawardena, M.; Kurt, F.; et al. (2008). "Elephas maximus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2016.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature.

• http://www.defenders.org/elephant/basic-facts

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