The African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is a forest-dwelling elephant of the Congo Basin. It is the smallest of the three extant species of elephant, but is also the third-largest living terrestrial animal. Formerly considered either a synonym or a subspecies of the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana), a 2010 study established the two are distinct species.
The disputed pygmy elephants of the Congo Basin, often assumed to be a separate species (Loxodonta pumilio) by cryptozoologists, are probably forest elephants whose diminutive size and/or early maturity is due to environmental conditions. Adult "pygmy elephants" have reportedly weighed as little as 900 kg (1,980 lb). African forest elephants were famously the species used by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, as war elephants in his crossing of the Alps during the Punic Wars against the Romans.
Read more about African Forest Elephant: Description, Diet, Conservation
Famous quotes containing the words african, forest and/or elephant:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“The forest waves, the morning breaks,
The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes,
Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be
And life pulsates in rock or tree.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high he reached the sky,
And didn’t get back till the Fourth of July.”
—Unknown. I Asked My Mother (l. 1–4)