The Borneo elephant, also called the Bornean elephant or the Borneo pygmy elephant, is a subspecies of Asian elephant ''(Elephas maximus)'' that inhabits northeastern

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

, in Indonesia and Malaysia. Its origin remains the subject of debate. A definitive subspecific classification as ''Elephas maximus borneensis'' awaits a detailed range-wide

morphometric Morphometrics (from Greek μορϕή ''morphe'', "shape, form", and -μετρία ''metria'', "measurement") or morphometry refers to the quantitative analysis of ''form'', a concept that encompasses size and shape. Morphometric analyses are c ...

and genetic study. Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List as the population has declined by at least 50% over the last three generations, estimated to be 60–75 years. It is pre-eminently threatened by

loss Loss may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Loss'' (Bass Communion album) (2006) * ''Loss'' (Mull Historical Society album) (2001) *"Loss", a song by God Is an Astronaut from their self-titled album (2008) * Losses "(Lil Tjay son ...

degradation Degradation may refer to: Science * Degradation (geology), lowering of a fluvial surface by erosion * Degradation (telecommunications), of an electronic signal * Biodegradation of organic substances by living organisms * Environmental degradation ...

and fragmentation of habitat. The

Sultan of Sulu The Sultanate of Sulu ( Tausūg: ''Kasultanan sin Sūg'', كاسولتانن سين سوڬ; Malay: ''Kesultanan Sulu''; fil, Sultanato ng Sulu; Chavacano: ''Sultanato de Sulu/Joló''; ar, سلطنة سولك) was a Muslim state that ruled ...

was thought to have introduced captive elephants to Borneo in the 18th century, which were released into the jungle. Comparison of the Borneo elephant population to putative source populations in DNA analysis indicates that the Borneo elephants more likely derived from

Sundaic Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...

stock and are indigenous to Borneo, rather than having been introduced by humans. The genetic divergence of Borneo elephants warrants their recognition as a separate

evolutionarily significant unit An evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) is a population of organisms that is considered distinct for purposes of conservation. Delineating ESUs is important when considering conservation action. This term can apply to any species, subspecies, geo ...

Characteristics

In general, Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants and have the highest body point on the head. The tip of their trunk has one finger-like process. Their back is convex or level. It has become commonplace to refer to the Borneo elephant as a 'pygmy' subspecies, although adult elephants of Sabah of both genders are similar in height to their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia. Five measurements of the skull of a fully adult female elephant from Gomantong Forest Reserve were slightly smaller (72–90%) than comparable dimensions averaged for two Sumatran skulls. Few available measurements show that they are of similar size to other populations of the Sunda subregion. Morphological measurements of fifteen captive elephants from Peninsular Malaysia and of six elephants from Sabah were taken between April 2005 and January 2006, and repeated three times for each elephant and averaged. There was no significant difference in any of the characters between the two captive populations. They are also remarkably tame and passive, another reason some scientists think they descended from a domestic collection.

Distribution and habitat

Elephants are confined to the northern and northeastern parts of Borneo. In the 1980s, there were two distinct populations: One lived in Sabah, ranging over the

Tabin Wildlife Reserve The Tabin Wildlife Reserve ( ms, Taman Hidupan Liar Tabin) is a nature preserve in Sabah, Malaysia. It was created in 1984 to preserve Sabah's disappearing wild animals. Occupying a large part of the peninsula forming the northern headland of ...

and adjacent mostly logged dipterocarp forest on steep terrain; the other inhabited the hilly interior at about altitude in dipterocarp forest, which was largely undisturbed at the time and only logged at its periphery. In Kalimantan, their range is restricted to a small contiguous area of the upper

Sembakung River The Sembakung River is a river of Borneo, in the province of North Kalimantan, Indonesia, about 1600 km northeast of the capital Jakarta. The range of wild elephants in Sabah and Kalimantan seems to have expanded very little in the past 100 years despite access to suitable habitat elsewhere on Borneo. Borneo's soil tends to be young, leached, and infertile, and there is speculation that the distribution of wild elephants on the island may be limited by the occurrence of

natural mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ( ...

sources.. Sabah Wildlife Department In 1992, the estimated elephant population size in Sabah ranged from 500–2,000 individuals, based on survey work conducted in the

, in Lower

Kinabatangan District The Kinabatangan District ( ms, Daerah Kinabatangan) is an administrative district in the Malaysian state of Sabah, part of the Sandakan Division which includes the districts of Beluran, Kinabatangan, Sandakan, Telupid and Tongod. The capita ...

and in the

Deramakot Forest Reserve Deramakot Forest Reserve is a natural reserve in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia. It spans an area of 55,507 hectares. From July 1997 until October 2019 it was certified by Forest Stewardship Council The Forest Stewardship Council A. C. (FSC) is an i ...

. An elephant population census was conducted in Sabah between July 2007 and December 2008, counting dung piles along 216 line transects in five main elephant managed ranges, covering a total distance of . Results of this survey suggest an elephant population of 1,184–3,652 individuals inhabiting the ranges of Tabin, Lower Kinabatangan, North Kinabatangan, Ulu Kalumpang Forest Reserve and the central forest of Sabah. The elephant density and population size varied throughout the five key ranges affected by (i) conversion of lowland forest, (ii) fragmentation of habitat, and (iii) existing land use activities such as logging. The upper catchment of Ulu Segama Forest Reserve had the highest density of elephants with 3.69 elephants per . Only the unprotected central forest area supported an elephant population of more than 1,000 individuals. In 2005, five female elephants were fitted with tracking devices to study their home range and movement patterns in Sabah. Results suggest that elephant herds occupied a minimum home range from in non-fragmented forest, while in fragmented forest habitat, the annual home range for elephants is estimated to be around .

Threats

The pre-eminent 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. Expanding human development disrupts their migration routes, depletes their food sources, and destroys their habitat. The population of elephants in Kalimantan continues to dwindle as a result of damage to protected forests. As of April 2012 an estimated 20–80 elephants range near 22 villages in the Sebuku subdistrict of Nunukan district in

North Kalimantan North Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. North Kalimantan borders the Malaysian states of Sabah to the north and Sarawak t ...

Conservation

''Elephas maximus'' is listed on

CITES Appendix I CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

. The genetic distinctiveness of Borneo elephants makes them one of the highest priority populations for Asian elephant conservation. In Malaysia, the Borneo elephants are protected under schedule II of the Wildlife Conservation Enactment. Any person found guilty of hunting elephants is liable on conviction to a fine of $RM 50,000 or five years imprisonment or both. The

Oregon Zoo The Oregon Zoo, originally the Portland Zoo and later the Washington Park Zoo, is a zoo located in Washington Park, Portland, Oregon, approximately southwest of downtown Portland. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest zoo west of the Mississippi R ...

in Portland has the only Borneo elephant in the United States, a rescued female by the name of Chendra, who was found orphaned, alone, hungry, and injured in the wild after her herd was crop-raided in a palm oil plantation.

Taxonomic history

It has not been resolved whether Borneo elephants are indigenous or have descended from captive elephants presented to the

in 1750 by the East India Company and later set free in northern Borneo. In the 19th century, a zoological exploration established that wild elephants occurred naturally in a restricted region of northeastern Borneo. The status and

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. A ...

distinctiveness of the Borneo elephants has been controversial since then. In 1940,

Frederick Nutter Chasen Frederick Nutter Chasen (1896 – 13 February 1942) was an English zoologist. Chasen was born in Norfolk, England. He was apprenticed to Frank Leney of the Norwich Museum in 1912, joining the Museum as a full-time employee in 1919. Between thes ...

considered Bornean elephants as descendants of an introduced stock, and placed them in the subspecies '' Elephas maximus indicus''. Reginald Innes Pocock having studied specimens in the

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

disagreed in 1943, and placed all Sundaic elephants in the subspecies '' Elephas maximus sumatrensis''. In 1950,

Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala (1900–1976) was a Sri Lankan paleontologist, zoologist, and artist. Early life and education He was born in Colombo, the son of Paul Edward Pieris and Lady Hilda Obeyesekere Pieris. He had two younger brothers ...

described a subspecies ''Elephas maximus borneensis'', taking as his type an illustration in the National Geographical Magazine. In 2003, the debate was re-opened by a suggestion that the introduced Sulu elephants and the northeastern Borneo population might have descended from the now-extinct

Javan elephant The Javan elephant (''Elephas maximus sondaicus'') was proposed by Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala in 1953, based on an illustration of a carving on the Buddhist monument of Borobudur in Java. He thought that the Asian elephant (''Elephas max ...

, which was named ''Elephas maximus sondaicus'' by Deraniyagala. This hypothesis is based on missing archaeological evidence of long-term elephant habitation in Borneo, a corroboration in folklore and that elephants have not colonized the entire island of Borneo. In 2003, Mitochondrial DNA analysis and microsatellite data indicated that the extant population is derived from Sundaic stock, but has undergone independent local evolution for some 300,000 years since a postulated Pleistocene colonization, and possibly became isolated from other Asian elephant populations when land bridges that linked Borneo with the other Sunda Islands and the Asian mainland disappeared after the Last Glacial Maximum 18,000 years ago.

History

Elephants were appropriate gifts from one ruler to another, or to a person of high standing, and it was customary to transport them by sea. In about 1395, the Raja of Java gave two elephants to the ruler Raja Baginda of Sulu. These animals were reputedly the founders of a

feral A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

population at the western end of Borneo. When in 1521 the remnants of

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...

’s circumnavigation of the Earth reached Brunei, the chronicler of the voyage recounted that the delegation from the flagship ''Victoria'' was conveyed to and from the ruler's palace on elephants caparisoned in silk. This custom had been discontinued by the time later visitors arrived in Brunei in the 1770s, who reported wild-living elephant herds that were hunted by local people after harvest. Despite the early records of royal elephants in Brunei and

Banjarmasin ) , translit_lang1 = Other , translit_lang1_type1 = Jawi , translit_lang1_info1 = بنجر ماسين , settlement_type = City , motto = ''Kayuh Baimbai'' ( Banjar ...

, there was no tradition of capturing and taming local wild elephants in Borneo. The arrival of elephants in the northern Kalimantan region of Borneo coincides with the rule of the Sultans of Sulu over Sabah. The Sultanate of Sulu enjoyed peaceful ties with the Hindu Empire of Java. As a token of appreciation, the rulers of Java sent their elephants to Sulu, much as they had sent Javan elephants to the Sultanate of

Maguindanao Maguindanao (, Maguindanaon: ''Prubinsya nu Magindanaw''; Iranun'': Perobinsia a Magindanao''; tl, Lalawigan ng Maguindanao) was a province of the Philippines located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). From 2014 t ...

, which also partly gives the reason why skeletal remains of small elephants are found in Mindanao, south Philippines. The Sultan of Sulu and his family shipped some of their prized Javan elephants to northeast Borneo due to lack of land and for the elephants to help in hauling logs out of the forest to create fast and long ships. When this lease was signed, most of these timid and largely domesticated small elephants under the employ of Sulu's shipbuilders and traders were released into the forests so they could live deep inside the jungle away from any feuding sultan who might use them for war. This single act of releasing the pachyderms to the wild made the Bolkiah family of Sulu and their allies the savior of what remaining elephants are left, old locals attest.

References

External links

WWF: ''Borneo elephant''eurekalert April 2008: Extinct' elephant may have been found again -- on a different island''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q835120 Elephants Endemic fauna of Borneo Mammals of Borneo Mammals of Indonesia Mammals of Malaysia Endangered fauna of Asia Mammals described in 1950