What is the scientific name of the Asian elephant?
The scientific name of the Asian elephant is Elephas maximus
Are there any subspecies?
There are three subspecies of the Asian elephant.
- Elephas maximus indicus on the Asian mainland
- Elephas maximus maximus on Sri Lanka
- Elephas maximus sumatranus on the Indonesian island of Sumatra
These subspecies designations were based primarily on body size and minor differences in coloration, plus the fact that E. m. sumatranus has relatively larger ears and an extra pair of ribs (Shoshani and Eisenberg 1982).
Where are Asian elephants found?
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Distribution: (historically and current)
Distribution text is taken from the IUCN Red List, click here to read the full article.
Asian elephants formerly ranged from West Asia along the Iranian coast into the Indian subcontinent, eastwards into South-east Asia including Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, and into China at least as far as the Yangtze-Kiang. This former range covered over 9 million km².
Asian elephants are now extinct in West Asia, Java, and most of China. The western populations (Elephas maximus asurus) were probably extinct by 100 BC, and the main Chinese populations (sometimes referred to as E. m. rubridens) disappeared sometime after the 14th century BC.
Even within its surviving range in South and South-east Asia, the species has been in retreat for hundreds if not thousands of years, and generally survives only in highly fragmented populations.
Asian elephants still occur in isolated populations in 13 states, with a very approximate total range area of 486,800 km².
Asian elephants in South Asia
Bangladesh: They were once widespread, but today it is largely restricted to areas that are relatively less accessible to humans, mainly Chittagong and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast.
Bhutan: In Bhutan, all the existing elephant populations are found along the border with India. In the past, elephants made seasonal migrations from Bhutan to the grasslands of India during the wetter summer months and returning in the winter.
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India: Once widespread in India, the species is now restricted to four general areas: northeastern, central, northwestern, and southern India.
In northeastern India, the elephant range extends from the eastern border of Nepal in northern West Bengal to parts of the lower Brahmaputra plains and Karbi Plateau.
In central India, highly fragmented elephant populations are found in the States of Orissa, Jharkhand, and the southern part of West Bengal.
In north-western India, the species occurs in six fragmented populations at the foot of the Himalayas in Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, including the Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary.
In southern India, elephants occur in the hilly terrain of the Western Ghats and in parts of the Eastern Ghats.
Nepal: Elephants were once widespread in the lowland Terai, but are now restricted to a few protected areas along the border with India: Royal Chitwan National Park, Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Royal Bardia National Park, and Royal Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, and their environs.
Sri Lanka: Asian elephants were once found throughout Sri Lanka, but today elephants are restricted mostly to the lowlands in the dry zone. However there are small remnant populations in the wet zones in the Peak Wilderness Area and Sinharaja Area.
Asian elephants in South-east Asia
Cambodia: In Cambodia, elephants are primarily found in the mountains of the south-west and in Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri Provinces. Recent surveys in Keo Sema District (Mondulkiri Province) suggest that important numbers may remain in that area. Elsewhere, Asian elephants persist in Cambodia in only small, scattered populations.
China: Asian elephants once ranged widely over much of southern China, including the Fujiang, Guangdong, and Guangxi Provinces.
The species was extirpated in southern Fujiang and northern Guangdong during the 12th century, but evidence indicates persistence in Guangxi into the 17th century.
All that now remains of this once widespread elephant population in China is the remnant in Yunnan where the species survives in three prefectures: Xishuangbanna, Simao, and Lincang.
Lao People’s Democratic Republic: In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, elephants remain widely but very patchily distributed in forested areas, both in the highlands and lowlands. Two important and likely viable populations are known, one in Xaignaboli Province west of the Mekong and one on the Nakai Plateau.
Sumatra: On Sumatra (in Indonesia), the elephant was once widespread, but now survives only in highly fragmented populations. In the mid-1980s, 44 discrete elephant populations were known to exist, 12 of these were in Lampung Province. However, by 2003, only three of Lampung’s 12 populations were extant.
Nevertheless, the island is thought to hold some of the most significant populations outside of India. Surveys in Lampung Province’s two national parks, Bukit Barisan Selatan and Way Kambas, produced population estimates of 498 and 180 elephants, respectively. Bukit Barisan Selatan NP is therefore a critically important area for Asian elephant conservation.
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Peninsular Malaysia: Here the species is still widely distributed in the interior of the country in the following States: Pahang (which probably has the largest population), Perak, Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, and Negeri Sembilan (where very few remain).
Borneo: On Borneo, elephants only occur in the lowlands of the northeastern part of the island in the Malaysian State of Sabah and adjacent parts of Kalimantan (Indonesia).
The origin of the elephants of Borneo remains unclear and the subject of debate. Due to the limited distribution of the island’s elephant population it is argued by some that the species was not indigenous, but descended from imported captive elephants.
However, others argues that while captive elephants have undoubtedly been brought to Borneo, genetic analyses have shown that the elephants found on Borneo are genetically distinct, with molecular divergence indicating a Pleistocene colonisation and subsequent isolation.
Myanmar: The Asian elephant has a wide, but highly fragmented, distribution in Myanmar. The five main areas of elephant abundance are: the Northern Hill Ranges, the Western Hill Ranges, Pegu Yoma (central Myanmar), Tenasserim Yoma (in the south, bordering Thailand), and Shan State or eastern Yoma.
Thailand: In Thailand, the species occurs mainly in the mountains along the border with Myanmar, with smaller fragmented populations occurring in the peninsula in the south. In the northeast areas include forest complexes and the Khao Yai National Park, and in the east Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks.
Viet Nam: In Viet Nam, only a small population persists now. In the northern part of the country there are no elephants left, barring occasional wanderers into Son La from Lao PDR. In the central and southern parts of the country, only very small isolated populations remain.
How many Asian elephants are there?
A recent estimate for the global population size of the Asian elephant was 41,410–52,345 animals (Sukumar 2003). The estimated population size for each country was:
- Bangladesh: 150–250
- Bhutan: 250–500
- Cambodia: 250–600
- China: 200–250
- India: 26,390–30,770
- Indonesia: 2,400–3,400
- Lao PDR: 500–1,000
- Malaysia: 2,100–3,100
- Myanmar: 4,000–5,000
- Nepal: 100–125
- Sri Lanka: 2,500–4,000
- Thailand: 2,500–3,200
- Vietnam: 70–150
However, Blake and Hedges (2004) and Hedges (2006) argue that the oft-repeated global population ‘estimate’ of about 40,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants is no more than a crude guess, which has been accepted unchanged for a quarter of a century.
They argue that with very few exceptions all we really know about the status of Asian elephants is the location of some (probably most) populations, with in some cases a crude idea of relative abundance; and for some large parts of the species range we do not even know where the populations are, or indeed if they are still extant.
These difference of opinion are due in part to the difficulty in counting elephants in dense vegetation in difficult terrain, different survey techniques being used in different places, and a too-widely held belief that population monitoring is unimportant.
Nevertheless, whatever the error margins, it appears almost certain that over 50% of the remaining wild Asian elephants occur in India.
The overall population trend of the Asian elephant has been downwards, probably for centuries.
This remains the case in most parts of its range, but especially in most of the countries of South-east Asia. Within India, there is evidence that the large population in the Western Ghats in south of the country has been increasing in recent years due to improved conservation effectiveness.
Our (PTES) study area presently is the home range of 250 to 300 elephants.
What do Asian elephants eat?
Elephants are herbivores, which means they eat plants. They eat a wide variety of different plants and plant parts.
Their diet depends heavily on where they live, what is available, and what season it is. Some common foods include grasses, palms, legumes, flowers, fruits, roots, bamboo, and more. Some feed on farmers crops, like sugarcane.
In our study area most of the elephant herds depend on agricultural production in their influence zone.
Do Asian elephants have any predators?
Asian elephants usually do not have any predators. A calf may sometime attacked by tigers, hyaenas and wild dogs. The majority of elephant deaths occurring in India are due to human-elephant conflict and railway accidents.
How big do Asian elephants get?
The biggest Asian males reach no more than 3.5 meters, the weight of an Asian elephant is up to 3,000 – 4,000 kgs for adult females and 4,000-6,000kgs for adult males.
How long do Asian elephants live for?
The average lifespan for wild Asian Elephant is approx. 70 years. But in captivity, the lifespan can increase upto 80 years. The record living elephant ‘Dakshyayani’ died in captivity in 2019 in India at the age of 88 years.
What do Asian elephants use their trunk for?
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Trunks are elephants’ noses and can detect scents up to 20km away. Elephants use their trunk to feed by grabbing and rotating trees, grasses, branches, and twigs into their mouth.
They use their trunks to suck up water that they shoot into their mouth to drink or spray their bodies to keep cool. Trunks are used in communication, such as trumpeting or touching other elephants.
How do Asian elephants sleep?
The elephant in wild observed to sleep in day time from 11am to 3pm maximum in our study areas. The captive elephants observed to sleep at night for 4 to 6 hrs approx.
How do Asian elephants communicate?
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Elephants use vocalizations for both long and short distance communication.
The acoustic repertoire of wild Asian elephants could be classified into four mutually exclusive categories, namely, trumpets, chirps, roars, and rumbles, based on quantitative analyses of their spectral and temporal features.
One of the call types, the rumble, exhibited high structural diversity, particularly in the direction and extent of frequency modulation of calls.
Juveniles produced three of the four call types, including trumpets, roars, and rumbles, in the context of play and distress.
Adults produced trumpets and roars in the context of disturbance, aggression, and play. Chirps were typically produced in situations of confusion and alarm.
Rumbles were used for contact calling within and among herds, by matriarchs to assemble the herd, in close-range social interactions, and during disturbance and aggression.
Can Asian elephants swim?
Elephants can swim comfortably. We observed an elephant herd crossing big rivers in night and just putting their trunk tip above water level.
It was also observed that when the calf is 4 to 5 days old, the allomothers help the calf to get into the village pond or river to bathe.
Are Asian elephants clever?
Asian elephants are quite clever. One can experience their cleverness during the crop-raiding or driving the elephant herds by villagers. I am giving just sharing a story.
In our study area we often experience 40 to 80 elephants in group during crop raiding and migration from one zone to another.
Whenever we try to drive away the elephant herd from an agricultural field, the group splits into small group of 5 to 15 and scatters in different direction. It makes our team to spend another unfruitful night and unsuccessful crop protection initiative.
We also experienced in Khargarpur Forest Division of West Bengal, India that a female elephant carried a dry tree log and put it on energised fence and tore it down by pressing the log with her front leg.
Are Asian elephants matriarchal?
Yes, Asian elephants are highly matriarchal.
Do Asian elephants migrate?
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The following is based on observations in India only.
The Asian elephants definitely show long range migration. In India, specially in our study zones, we observed the elephant herds show both long range and short range migration.
Their migration depends on the seasonal availability of crops and herd strength. The bigger herds usually shows long range migration whereas the smaller groups show short range migration.
It is also recorded that when the elephant group members are 3 or less, then they become residential (stationary in small area).
In our area the migration starts after 3pm and lasts up to 4am the next day. The distance covered during this time varies from 5 km to 35 km.
Actually it depends upon the availability of fodder (agricultural crops, grain storage area etc.) and shelter of forests. It was also recorded that in a single night the herd moved more than 25 kms and after crop raiding they again returned to the originating place for shelter.
Do Asian elephants have tusks?
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Only male Asian elephants have tusks. Female Asian elephants have rudimentary tusks called tushes, which can be also found in some males.
However, it’s worth noting that not all male Asian elephants grow tusks.
What is the difference between African and Asian elephants?
Head shape:
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 centre of their head.
Size & shape of ears:
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. Asian elephant’s ears are smaller, and more semi-circular.
Size & weight:
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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 3.5 meters. One interesting note on elephant height – the African elephant is tallest at the shoulder, while the Asian elephant’s tallest point is its back.
Because of the differences in their size, adult African elephants weigh between 4,000 and 8,000kg, whilst Asian elephants are lighter, weighing in at between 3000 and 6,000kg.
Appearance & size of tusks:
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.
However, it’s worth noting that not all male Asian elephants grow tusks, and with African elephants, while both sexes generally exhibit tusks, there are some cases without tusks. As a rule African elephant tusks are bigger than Asian elephant tusks.
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The Trunk:
An African elephant’s trunk has more visible rings on it, and is not as hard to the touch as the Asian elephant trunk. The end of their trunks are also very different – the African elephant trunk has two distinct ‘fingers’ which they use to pick up and manipulate objects.
The Asian elephant has only one ‘finger’ at the end of its trunk, which they compensate for by holding objects against the underside of their trunk.
Lower lip shape:
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The lower lips of the two elephants differ, though you can only really notice this one if you’re close up and the elephant has a raised trunk and open mouth.
An African elephant’s lower lips are short and round, whereas Asian elephants have long, tapered lower lips.
Skin texture:
The African elephants’ skin is more wrinkled than the Asian elephants’ smoother skin.
The cracks are formed by the outermost layer of skin getting thicker and bending, until the brittle skin layer fractures under the strain.
Number of toenails:
All elephants have 5 toes on each foot, but not every toe has a nail. The number of toenails varies between the African bush elephant, African forest elephant, and Asian elephant:
- African forest elephants: 5 toenails on the front feet and 4 on the back feet
- African bush elephants: 4 toenails on the front feet and 3 on the back feet
- Asian elephants: 5 toenails on the front feet and 4 on the back feet
Teeth shape:
All elephant teeth are pre-molars or molars. African elephant teeth are ‘loxadont’ (or sloping), a term which gives them their scientific name Africana loxadonta. In contrast, Asian elephant teeth have a compressed diamond-shaped tooth profile.
How often do Asian elephants reproduce?
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When do they reach breeding age, how long is gestation, what is a baby Asian elephant called, do Asian elephants ever have twins.
The Asian Elephants are polygynous. The male usually reach sexually maturity at 14 yrs whereas female gain sexual maturity at 10-12 yrs.
Under favourable conditions, a female can give birth once every 3-4 years. Gestation period lasts quite long, 18-22 months, after which a single calf is born. The baby feeds on breast milk from its mother as well as other lactating females if necessary.
A few months later young add grass to its daily diet meanwhile continuing to drink breast milk for up to 1.5 year. Even after weaning, the mother keeps on caring for and protecting the young.
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Are Asian elephants endangered and what threats do they face?
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Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) has most recently been assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in September 2019. Elephas maximus is listed as Endangered under criteria A2c.
The major threats to the Asian elephant today are habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, which are driven by an expanding human population, and lead in turn to increasing conflicts between humans and elephants when elephants eat or trample crops.
Hundreds of people and elephants are killed annually as a result of such conflicts.
The long-term future of elephants outside protected areas, as well as in some protected areas, is therefore inextricably linked to mitigating such human–elephant conflicts, and this is one of the largest conservation challenges in Asia today.
Deforestation activities also converts the continuous forest to forest patches which expose the herd during migration and increases the conflicts.
Asian elephants live in the region of the world with the densest human population, growing at a rate of between 1–3% per year.
Because elephants require much larger areas of natural habitat than most other terrestrial mammals in Asia, they are one of the first species to suffer the consequences of habitat fragmentation and destruction and because of its great size and large food requirements, the elephant cannot co-exist with people in areas where agriculture is the dominant form of land-use.
In extreme cases, elephants have been confined as so called ‘pocketed herds’ in small patches of forest in landscapes dominated by man. Such ‘pocketed herds’ represent an extreme stage in the human–elephant conflict.
Poaching is another threat to elephants in Asia too. Apart from all these, the railways tracks are also a major threat to migratory elephant herds.
Where are the best places to see Asian elephants?
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Any elephant zone area is best to see the wild elephants. You only need to identify the specific zone where they come out of the forest and have lot of patience.
Can Asian elephants count?
Much debate surrounds whether any animals are able to count in the precise, symbolic way that we humans can.
But many species – from parrots to monkeys and even bees – do appear to have a capacity for some sort of basic numeracy.
Asian elephants seem particularly good at it. They can distinguish between pictures showing different numbers of fruit, even when the size of the fruit varies.
This suggests they can think in numbers specifically, and are not just estimating overall quantity.
They are good at that, too, though – they can distinguish between buckets containing different numbers of sunflower seeds just by sniffing them.
Q&A answered by Stuart Blackman.
Using elephant poo to make paper
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Where there’s muck there’s gold. Rhino and elephant dung can help conservation, says Arundhati Nath.
When greater one-horned rhinos and Asian elephants stray into the fringes of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, they often leave behind heaps of dung.
Later, locals working for an ingenious company called Elrhino collect it and other forest waste with a mission to turn poop into paper.
Elrhino is the brainchild of Mahesh Chandra Bora, a retired mining engineer. After several experiments in blending rhino faeces with a kitchen blender, Mahesh felt it was feasible to produce dung paper on a larger scale and so he set up the company in 2014. His daughter Nisha Bora joined him in this offbeat venture.
Assam in north-east India is renowned for its one-horned rhinos and Asian elephants. Both species are being ruthlessly poached, for horns and tusks respectively.
Only around 3,500 rhinos remain in the wild, with just two areas containing more than 100 individuals: Kaziranga (with 90 per cent of the population) and Chitwan National Park in Nepal.
Between 2001 and 2016 at least 239 rhinos were killed in Assam, though Chitwan has lost only a single rhino to poachers in the past three years.
Helping conserve the rhinos and forests while employing and empowering the rural populace by producing 100 per cent biodegradable, tree-free paper is the dream that drives Mahesh and Nisha.
“We want to stimulate talk about rhinos and elephants and raise support for them,” Mahesh says.
“The inclusion of dung and grass also gives a unique texture to our paper. Its intrinsic conservation value is part of its appeal too.”
The company uses various complex procedures to turn dung, forest wastes, jute, water hyacinth, rags and pieces of traditional silks such as Muga and Eri into paper.
It is then made into hand-crafted notebooks, lampshades, playing cards and bags.
Given that rhinos can produce up to 20kg of dung a day, and elephants around 100kg, there’s certainly no shortage of raw material.
Written by Arundhati Nath
Who is the PTES Asian elephant expert?
Samya Basu is based in West Bengal, India and is an expert in in tackling human-elephant solutions.
Samya is identifying all high-risk areas to elephants, including points where railway tracks or naked high-voltage electricity wire pass through their paths.
Working closely with local policy makers and forest managers, Samya is advising on effective safety measures such as regulating speed limits on train lines and insulating electrical cables. This should immediately help save elephants’ lives.
He and his team are also training elephant trackers from local villages to monitor the elephant herds, diverting them towards low-risk zones. This will reduce accidental deaths and retaliatory killings.
Decreasing the conflicts between elephants and humans is the only way they can live peacefully side by side. It could also interrupt an emerging tolerance of poaching.
Samya also shares some of his own observations and experiences from his work with the Asian elephant.
Main image: Elephant family in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. © chuchart duangdaw/Getty