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Proposed Subspecies
Common Names
Scientific Name
Fossils of first elephant-like animals discovered in Moroccan rocks (Gheerbrant 1996, 2009)
Over time, there have been 10 or 11 families in the Order Proboscidea
Mastodons diverged from elephant family 24 to 28 million years ago
Molecular data: African elephants diverged from Asian elephants and mammoths 7.6 million years ago
New discovery: Earliest Asian elephants found in 6.7–5.2 million-year-old rocks in Kenya
Mammoths (Mammuthus) belong to an extinct genera of the elephant family
Modern genera Loxodonta and Elephasboth originated in East Africa
Elephants' closest living relatives: hyrax, sea cows, golden moles
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Subtribe: Elephantina
Genus: Elephas
Species: Elephas maximus (Asian elephant)
Subspecies: E. m. maximus (Sri Lankan Asian elephant)
Subspecies: E. m. indicus (mainland Asian elephant)
Subspecies: E. m. sumatranus (Sumatran Asian elephant)
Describer: Order established = Illiger (1811). Family describer = Gray (1821). Revised by Maglio (1973). The Asian Elephant (Elephas) = Linnaeus (1758).
Illustration of an Asian Elephant herd with calf.
Brehm's Life of Animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools (1895). Volume 1, Mammalia.
Image credit: © Biodiversity Heritage Library, Flickr. Some rights reserved.
Alter (2004)
Fernando et al. (2003)
Fleischer et al (2001)
Gheerbrant et al (1996, 2009)
Nikaido (2003)
Palombo and Villa (2001)
Poulakakis et al (2006)
Rohland et al (2007)
Shoshani (1992, 2006)
Thenius (1990)
Yang (1996)