A discovery to trumpet... a third species of elephant is found using DNA

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 8:15 AM on 22nd December 2010

For zoologists it has, if you excuse the pun, long been the elephant in the room.

While the text books insist there are just two species of elephant in the world – the long-eared African and the smaller Asian – many experts have been convinced there are three.

Now a genetic study has confirmed that Africa alone is home to two distinct types of the animal.

DNA tests have shown that the larger savanna elephant, known from thousands of wildlife documentaries and Tarzan movies, is indeed a separate species from the smaller and much overlooked forest-dwelling variety.

In fact, the two African elephants are as distinct from each other as some living elephants are from mammoths, the study found.

Two become three: Africa's forest elephant is a species in its own right

It also concluded that, with the exception of some inter-breeding between the two, the species have been separate for at least five million years.

Researchers made the discovery after comparing DNA samples from the three living elephant species with the extinct woolly mammoth and American mastodon.

Professor Michi Hofreiter, an expert in ancient DNA at York University who was involved in the study, said: ‘The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths.

‘The split between African savanna and forest elephants is almost as old as the split between humans and chimpanzees. This result amazed us all.’

African savanna elephants have an average shoulder height of 11.5ft and weigh between six and seven tons. Their tusks are more curved and their ears more pointed than forest elephants, and they have one fewer toenail on each foot.

In contrast, the African forest elephants are just eight feet tall at the shoulder and weigh half as much as their bush relatives. They live in the Congo basin and have rounder ears.

Distinct: The savanna elephant is 3ft taller and twice as heavy

Many scientists – including those working for the influential International Union for the Conservation of Nature – have argued that the forest elephant is a sub-species of African elephant, and not a proper species in its own right.

The possibility that the two might be separate species was raised in 2001. However, the new study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, provides the most compelling scientific evidence that they are distinct.

Co-author Dr Alfred Roca, of the University of Illinois, added: ‘We now have to treat the forest and savanna elephants as two different units for conservation purposes.

‘Since 1950, all African elephants have been conserved as one species. Now that we know the forest and savanna elephants are two very distinctive animals, the forest elephants, which are fewer in number, should become a bigger priority for conservation purposes.’