''Elephas'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

elephant Elephants are the largest living land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant ('' Loxodonta africana''), the African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''), and the Asian elephant ('' Elephas maximus ...

s and one of two surviving genera in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Elephantidae Elephantidae is a family (biology), family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals which includes the living Elephant, elephants (belonging to the genera ''Elephas'' and ''Loxodonta''), as well as a number of extinct genera like ''Mammuthus'' ...

, comprising one extant

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, the

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living ''Elephas'' species. It is the largest living land animal in Asia and the second largest living Elephantidae, elephantid in the world. It is char ...

(''E. maximus''). Several

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

species have been identified as belonging to the genus, extending back to the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

Description

Manchester Museum 2015 001 - Asian elephant

Species of ''Elephas'' have distinct bossing of the parieto-occipital region of the skull. The

premaxilla The premaxilla (or praemaxilla) is one of a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the upper jaw of many animals, usually, but not always, bearing teeth. In humans, they are fused with the maxilla. The "premaxilla" of therian mammals h ...

e bones containing the tusks are tapered.

Evolutionary history

Relationships of living and extinct elephantids based on DNA, after Palkopoulou et al. 2018.Asian elephants share a closer common ancestry with

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

s (genus ''Mammuthus'') than they do with

African elephant African elephants are members of the genus ''Loxodonta'' comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant (''L. africana'') and the smaller African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''). Both are social herbivores with grey skin. ...

s (''Loxodonta''). The oldest species attributed to the genus ''Elephas'' is ''E. nawataensis'' from the Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

-Early

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58 The oldest species widely attributed to the genus, '' Elephas ekorensis'' is known from the early-mid Pliocene (5–4.2 million years ago) of East Africa'','' though the attribution of this species to ''Elephas'' has been questioned, due to a lack of shared morphological features with later ''Elephas'' species.'''' The oldest record of the genus outside of Africa is '' Elephas planifrons'' which is known from the Late Pliocene of the Indian subcontinent, around 3.6 million years ago. However, the placement of ''Elephas planifrons'' within the genus has also been questioned. The earliest fossils of the ancestor of the modern Asian elephant, '' Elephas hysudricus'' date to the beginning of the Pleistocene, around 2.6 million years ago, with remains found on the Indian subcontinent. Modern Asian elephants had evolved from ''E. hysrudicus'' by the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

Taxonomy

The scientific name ''Elephas'' was proposed by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1758 who described the genus and an elephant from

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. The genus is assigned to the

proboscidea Proboscidea (; , ) is a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family (Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Three l ...

n family

and is made up of one living and seven extinct species:Maglio, V.J. (1973). "Origin and evolution of the Elephantidae". ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia Volume 63''. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, pp. 149 * '' Elephas maximus'' – Asian elephant ** '' Elephas maximus indicus'' – Indian elephant ** '' Elephas maximus maximus'' – Sri Lankan elephant ** '' Elephas maximus sumatranus'' – Sumatran elephant ** '' Elephas maximus borneensis'' – Borneo elephant, proposed but not yet recognized as validFernando, P., Vidya, T.N.C., Payne, J., Stuewe, M., Davison, G., et al. (2003)
''DNA Analysis Indicates That Asian Elephants Are Native to Borneo and Are Therefore a High Priority for Conservation''
PLoS Biol 1 (#1): e6 The following Asian elephants were proposed as

subspecies, but are now considered

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

with the Indian elephant: * '' Elephas maximus sondaicus'' – Javan elephant † * '' Elephas maximus rubridens'' – Chinese elephant † * '' Elephas maximus asurus'' – Syrian elephant † The following ''Elephas'' species are extinct: * '' Elephas beyeri'' – dwarf elephant species described from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

remains found in 1911 in

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

by von Königswald * '' Elephas ekorensis'' – described from the Kubi Algi Formation, Turkana,

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

, dating to the Early Pliocene, one of the oldest species of the genus. * '' Elephas hysudricus'' – described from fossil remains found in the Siwalik Hills of the northern Indian subcontinent by Falconer and Cautley, 1845, thought to be the ancestor of the living Asian elephant. * '' Elephas hysudrindicus'' – a fossil elephant of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and different from ''Elephas maximus sondaicus'' * '' Elephas planifrons'' - one of the oldest species, known from the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene of the Indian subcontinent. * '' Elephas platycephalus'' a species sometimes recognised from the Pleistocene of India * ''Elephas kiangnanensis'' a species sometimes recognised from the Early-Middle Pleistocene of China.Haowen Tong & M. Patou-Mathis. (2003). Mammoth and other proboscideans in China during the Late Pleistocene. ''Deinsea'', ''9''(1), 421–428. * ''Elephas nawataensis'' a species of elephant known from the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene of Kenya, though other authors argue that this species is actually a synonym of '' Primelephas korotorensis.'' * ''Elephas atavus''? known from the Early Pleistocene of Africa, traditionally considered part of '' Elephas/Palaeoloxodon recki'' While formerly assigned to this genus, '' Elephas recki'', '' Elephas namadicus'', the straight-tusked elephant ''E. antiquus'' and the

dwarf elephant Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea which, through the process of allopatric speciation on islands, evolved much smaller body sizes (around shoulder height) in comparison with their immediate ancestors. Dwarf elephant ...

s '' E. falconeri'' and '' E. cypriotes'' are now placed in the separate genus ''

Palaeoloxodon ''Palaeoloxodon'' is an extinct genus of elephant. The genus originated in Africa during the Early Pleistocene, and expanded into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. The genus contains the largest known species of elephants, with ...

,'' which is more closely related to African elephants. However, some material historically assigned to ''Elephas recki'' , such as ''Elephas recki atavus,'' may be closely related to true ''Elephas,'' rather than to ''Palaeoloxodon'' '' "Elephas" celebensis'' is now placed in '' Stegoloxodon''.

References

{{Authority control Mammal genera Mammal genera with one living species Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus