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CMIPalaeo — The Third Elephant
#africa #endangered #genetics #loxodonta #pachyderm #wildlife #palaeoloxodon #straighttuskedelephant #africanforestelephant #loxodontacyclotis #congobasin #africanelephant #elephant #jungleanimals #rainforestanimal
Published: 2016-09-21 03:38:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 2180; Favourites: 37; Downloads: 3
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The African forest elephant, 'Loxodonta' cyclotis - or perhaps that should be Palaeoloxodon cyclotis?! New genetic evidence finds that the closest relatives of these bizarre and elusive giants of the Congo Basin are not the African bush elephants Loxodonta africana they were once lumped with, but rather the extinct straight-tusked elephants of the genus Palaeoloxodon! Looking at it now, I can definitely see some family ties, with those crazy tusks... In fact, I always found African forest elephants to be really odd (and amazing) looking, with their large heads and enormous rounded ears, often slender legs, arched backs, dark colouration, very long downswept tusks that are often brown or pink... great, great creatures.UPDATED: Here elifesciences.org/articles/254… is the paper on the genetic analysis.
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Comments: 7
Great news, then! but I wonder if it means that Palaeoloxodon is maybe paraphyletic... also, Loxodonta is not valid... too much to consider.
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I've heard a lot of people saying Loxodonta isn't valid, but wouldn't it just be restricted to the African bush elephant? I'm not certain but just off the top of my head I'd assume that L. africana was the type species in Loxodonta? African forest elephants would just either be in Palaeoloxodon or a new genus related to Palaeoloxodon, probably. Of course maybe some of the Palaeoloxodon elephants (like some the Mediterranean dwarves) might be more related to/within Elephas, as has been thought in the past.
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This new study is incredibly odd and amazing! I wouldn't have never expected the African Forest Elephant to be the closest relatives of Palaeoloxodon. It might in fact be in the same genus! This is an incredibly find! Do you have the actual scientific paper? All I could find was the post on Nature.com talking about it.
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I have been unable to find anything other than the press release on Nature.com, which I believe comes from a conference talk. The paper is presumably in-press and due to appear soon, otherwise I don't think this would have been announced to the public. Hopefully it'll be coming up soon and we can read about this in more detail!
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Sounds good. Could you make some more art and/or a journal entry about it when it comes out? So that we know the date of it's release? I know that a lot of people (myself included) forget easily.
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