AFRICAN ELEPHANT

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

Subject : Environment

Context : Recently, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has found that the forest elephant and savanna elephant are threatened with extinction.

Concept :

• The report has opted to assess the African mammal as two separate species following genetic studies of populations.
• The IUCN has found that the forest and savanna elephants split from each other 5–6m years ago, at about the same time humans separated from chimpanzees.
• The forest elephant has been classified by the IUCN as critically endangered, while the savanna elephant is listed as endangered.

About Forest and Savanna Elephants

• The majority of critically endangered forest elephants are in the Congo basin in Gabon, West Africa, while Botswana has the largest population of savanna elephants.
• The forest elephants are generally smaller in size, have oval-shaped ears, straighter tusks and longer gestation periods.
• The savanna elephants live in larger family groups; have bigger ears and different-shaped skulls, among other differences.
• The habitat range of both species rarely crosses over in Africa, with savanna elephants preferring grasslands and deserts, while the forest elephant is mainly found in tropical rainforests.

About African Elephant

• African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth.
• They are slightly larger than their Asian cousins and can be identified by their larger ears that look somewhat like the continent of Africa.
• African elephants are a keystone species, meaning they play a critical role in their ecosystem as they are known as ecosystem engineers.
• African elephants are categorized into savanna elephants and forest elephants.
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the global commercial ivory trade in 1989.