We’re in the steamy jungles of Borneo. My squishy boots are full of mud, blood and Leeches. I must ignore this, concentrating instead on what to do if the growling, trumpeting herd of wild forest Elephants surrounding us get too curious. The sounds and smells are overpowering. Forty feet away, a bull Elephant with pointy tusks gives me a once-over. He snorts, stamps, then slowly runs towards me. Oh boy, here we go.

DWINDLING NUMBERS

Elephants. They’re Earth’s largest land animals and are among the most recognizable of wildlife because of their floppy ears, prehensile trunks and gleaming ivory tusks. Children all over the world, even in places where modern Elephants have never trodden, have no trouble picking them out in coloring books.

I first saw wild Elephants in 2011, when we explored parts of the Kinabatangan River in Borneo, home not just to forest Elephants, but to Orangutans and Crocodiles as well (one Croc was Elephanter than our boat, which was all 15 rickety feet from bow to stern).

In the African savannah years later, we photographed herds of bush Elephants so large you could see them from miles away, floating grey islands in a swaying sea of golden grass.

But it was a trip to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in America that struck me the most. An eye-catching display of tiny Elephants, Mammoths and Mastodons clearly showed how our three Elephant species are all that have survived from a group that once numbered almost 200 species!

Playful Pachyderms. A pair of Borneo Forest Elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) spar inside the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Borneo, Malaysia. Standing just eight to nine feet at the shoulder, they are a subspecies of the Asian Elephant and are the smallest and rarest Elephants on Earth, numbering only about a thousand. (Gregg Yan)

THE RISE AND FALL OF PROBOSCIDS

There are currently three living Elephant species: the most iconic is the African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana), found throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Recently separated into its own species is the African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), slightly smaller and inhabits scattered forests and wetlands across West Africa.

Pachyderm Power. The author with a gorgeously pigmented Asian Elephant in the ancient Siamese capital of Ayutthaya. Both African and Asian Elephants can be tamed by a Mahout or Elephant keeper. Hannibal Barca, the ancient Carthaginian general who fought the Roman Empire to a standstill for nearly 20 years, used African War Elephants to instill fear into the Roman Legions, much like the giant Elephants in the final battle of the Lord of the Ring’s Return of the King. (Monique Francisco)

Last and most endangered is the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus), who can be tamed but still roams wild in a few Asian national parks. With their small ears, domed skulls and pink pigmentation, Asian Elephants are more closely related to the now-extinct Mammoths than their African cousins.

All three of these Elephant species be Elephant to the order Proboscidea, which evolved some 62 million years ago. Now largely extinct, the group once boasted of at least 180 known representatives, ranging from the two-foot tall Moeris Beast (Moeritherium gracile) to the Asian Straight-Tusked Elephant (Palaeoloxodon namadicus) who is known only from bone fragments but might have grown up to 17 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed as much as 250 people!

Though towering over most other animals they shared the grasslands and forests with, Proboscids eventually died out because of a host of factors, chief of them being climate change. Scientifically speaking, a plant or animal species typically lasts for around 10 million years before becoming extinct. Since life on Earth is at least 3.7 billion years old, our planet will naturally have lots of extinct lifeforms, ranging from Dinosaurs and Sabre-Toothed Cats to ancient Rhinos who, like the Proboscid order of Elephants, once numbered over a hundred species.

African Bush Elephants (Loxodonta africana) are currently the world’s largest land animals, growing up to 13 feet at the shoulder. Over 400,000 of them roam across the African continent. We said hello to these two beauties at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania, East Africa. (Gregg Yan)

NO ELEPHANTER WITH US

Extinct groups within the order Proboscidea include Deinotheres, Gomphotheres, Mastodons, and Stegodons. Some Proboscids had two tusks, four tusks, even weird fused teeth that turned their lower jaws into either immense shovels or tree-smashers (we’ll probably never know for sure).

Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), who coexisted with early and modern humans, lived right up to 4,000 years ago, when the Egyptians were already building the pyramids… but that’s another story for The Wild Side.

THREATENED EXISTENCE

Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) are highly intelligent and can be tamed as log-haulers in India and parts of Indochina (for thousands of years until as recently as the 1970s, they were also used for war). Adults average 9 to 10 feet at the shoulder. This Sumatran Elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) is taking a quick dip in Bali, Indonesia. (Gregg Yan)

Proboscids once roamed the Philippines, with scientists unearthing fossil fragments of Stegodon and Elephas in both Luzon and Panay. Asian Elephants were also supposedly introduced to Mindanao in the 1600s, where they ran wild for around 200 years.

Today, Earth’s last surviving 400,000 African Elephants and around 50,000 Asian Elephants are threatened by habitat loss and human-Elephant conflict and poaching — especially for their ivory tusks, which are fashioned into jewelry or displayed as curio items.

Around 20,000 African Elephants are shot each year to supply the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), which is one of the biggest threats to the world’s wild plants and animals. Without proper conservation measures and poaching deterrents, the world’s last three Elephant species might stride off into the sunset to join the rest of their ancient cousins.

The Elephant in the Room. After 62 million years of evolution, Elephants are still fascinating people.”‘Henry the Great”, a massive 13-foot tall African Bush Elephant, has been greeting visitors to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in America since 1959. Henry was shot by a Hungarian big game hunter named Fénykövi (in the era when big game hunting was still a thing) in Angola in 1955. He is possibly the largest living Elephant ever recorded, standing about three feet taller than even large Bush Elephants. (Gregg Yan)

MORE THAN A LIVING CURIOSITY

I’m back in Borneo and the tusked, bull Elephant starts to run towards me, growling and trumpeting. At 20 feet, the tree I’m using for cover looks toothpick-thin. At 10, I run back to a larger tree, its gnarled trunk as thick as a drum.

Suddenly, our guide, the renowned Malaysian tracker Osman Umi, intercepts the bull and actually starts playing with him. “This one is always curious,” he laughs, completely at home with wildlife and personally knowing most of the 40-odd members of this particular Elephant herd.

It’s been over a decade since that magical encounter and I often wonder how that tusked, bull Elephant is doing. Is he still alive? Did he sire children? I can only hope for the best for his kind: last of the Long Noses who once towered over much of the ancient world.

Most Famous Philippine Elephant. No Elephant story would be complete without mentioning Ma’ali, the only Elephant in the Philippines. Ma’ali was gifted to the Philippine government by Sri Lanka in 1977 and lived most of her life at the Manila Zoo, finally dying of old age in November 2023 after over 45 years in captivity. This was Ma’ali around six months before the end of her life. There are no more Elephants in the Philippines. (Gregg Yan)
Philippine Elephants? Yes, our beloved Animal Scene readers, we had Long Noses too once. Various Stegodon species (not true Elephants but Elephant-like Proboscids) once roamed Inang Bayan along with the Philippine Dwarf Elephant (Elephas beyeri) and other large animals, including giant Tortoises and Rhinoceros, as shown by this nifty diorama at the National Museum of Natural History in Manila. We highly encourage you and your animalkada to visit the museum to learn about the extinct animals of the Philippines and, more importantly, the plants and animals that need our help to stay alive. (Gregg Yan)
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Author

Gregg Yan has always loved animals — particularly those threatened with extinction. Gregg travels the world to photograph and write not just about endangered wildlife, but also about vanishing ecosystems and cultures. Catch up on his latest adventures through The Wild Side, his column for Animal Scene. Each trip, big or small, reveals the tiny mysteries of life on Earth.