Where do Asian elephants live?

The Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus"), also called Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus "Elephas" and is distributed in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India and Nepal in the west to Borneo in the south. Three subspecies are recognised—"E. m. maximus" from Sri Lanka, "E. m. indicus" from mainland Asia and "E. m. sumatranus" from the island of Sumatra. The Asian elephant is the largest living land animal in Asia.

Asian elephant

Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, as the population has declined by at least 50 percent over the last three generations, estimated to be 60–75 years. It is primarily threatened by loss of habitat, habitat degradation, fragmentation and poaching. In 2003, the wild population was estimated at between 41,410 and 52,345 individuals. Female captive elephants have lived beyond 60 years when kept in semi-natural surroundings, such as forest camps. In zoos, Asian elephants die at a much younger age; captive populations are declining due to a low birth and high death rate.

The genus "Elephas" originated in Sub-Saharan Africa during the Pliocene and spread throughout Africa before emigrating to southern Asia. The earliest indications of captive use of Asian elephants are engravings on seals of the Indus Valley Civilisation dated to the 3rd millennium BC.

Carl Linnaeus first described the genus "Elephas" and an elephant from Ceylon under the binomial "Elephas maximus" in 1758. In 1798, Georges Cuvier first described the Indian elephant under the binomial "Elephas indicus". In 1847, Coenraad Jacob Temminck first described the Sumatran elephant under the binomial "Elephas sumatranus". Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1940.

Three subspecies are currently recognised: the Sri Lankan elephant, the Indian elephant, and the Sumatran elephant. In 1950, Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described the Borneo elephant under the trinomial "Elephas maximus borneensis", taking as his type an illustration in "National Geographic", but not a living elephant in accordance with the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. "E. m. borneensis" lives in northern Borneo and is smaller than all the other subspecies, but with larger ears, a longer tail, and straight tusks. Results of genetic analysis indicate that its ancestors separated from the mainland population about 300,000 years ago.

The population in Vietnam and Laos was tested to determine if it is a subspecies as well. This research is considered vital, as less than 1,300 wild Asian elephants remain in Laos. In addition, two extinct subspecies are considered to have existed:In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African bush elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have more nail-like structures than those of African elephants—five on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot.

On average, males are about tall at the shoulder and in weight, while females are smaller at about at the shoulder and in weight. Length of body and head including trunk is with the tail being long. The largest bull elephant ever recorded was shot by the Maharajah of Susang in the Garo Hills of Assam, India in 1924, it weighed, stood tall at the shoulder and was long from head to tail. There are reports of larger individuals as tall as.

The distinctive trunk is an elongation of the nose and upper lip combined; the nostrils are at its tip, which has a one finger-like process. The trunk contains as many as 60,000 muscles, which consist of longitudinal and radiating sets. The longitudinals are mostly superficial and subdivided into anterior, lateral, and posterior. The deeper muscles are best seen as numerous distinct fasciculi in a cross-section of the trunk. The trunk is a multipurpose prehensile organ and highly sensitive, innervated by the maxillary division of the trigeminal nerve and by the facial nerve. The acute sense of smell uses both the trunk and Jacobson's organ. Elephants use their trunks for breathing, watering, feeding, touching, dusting, sound production and communication, washing, pinching, grasping, defense and offense.

The "proboscis" or trunk consists wholly of muscular and membranous tissue, and is a tapering muscular structure of nearly circular cross-section extending proximally from attachment at the anterior nasal orifice, and ending distally in a tip or finger. The length may vary from or longer depending on the species and age. Four basic muscle masses—the radial, the longitudinal and two oblique layers—and the size and attachments points of the tendon masses allow the shortening, extension, bending, and twisting movements accounting for the ability to hold, and manipulate loads of up to. Muscular and tendinous ability combined with nervous control allows extraordinary strength and agility movements of the trunk, such as sucking and spraying of water or dust and directed air flow blowing.

The trunk can hold about four litres of water. Elephants will playfully wrestle with each other using their trunks, but generally use their trunks only for gesturing when fighting.

Tusks serve to dig for water, salt, and rocks, to debark and uproot trees, as levers for maneuvering fallen trees and branches, for work, for display, for marking trees, as weapon for offense and defense, as trunk-rests, and as protection for the trunk. Elephants are known to be right or left tusked.

Female Asian elephants usually lack tusks; if tusks—in that case called "tushes"—are present, they are barely visible, and only seen when the mouth is open. The enamel plates of the molars are greater in number and closer together in Asian elephants. Some males may also lack tusks; these individuals are called "filsy makhnas", and are especially common among the Sri Lankan elephant population. Furthermore, the forehead has two hemispherical bulges, unlike the flat front of the African elephant. Unlike African elephants which rarely use their forefeet for anything other than digging or scraping soil, Asian elephants are more agile at using their feet in conjunction with the trunk for manipulating objects. They can sometimes be known for their violent behaviour.

A record tusk described by George P. Sanderson measured along the curve, with a girth of at the point of emergence from the jaw, the weight being. This was from an elephant killed by Sir Brooke and measured in length, and nearly in circumference, and weighed. The tusk's weight was, however, exceeded by the weight of a shorter tusk of about in length which weighed.

Skin colour is usually grey, and may be masked by soil because of dusting and wallowing. Their wrinkled skin is movable and contains many nerve centers. It is smoother than that of African elephants, and may be depigmented on the trunk, ears, or neck. The epidermis and dermis of the body average thick; skin on the dorsum is thick providing protection against bites, bumps, and adverse weather. Its folds increase surface area for heat dissipation. They can tolerate cold better than excessive heat. Skin temperature varies from. Body temperature averages.

Asian elephants have a very large and highly convoluted neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species. They have a greater volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing than all other existing land animals. Results of studies indicate that Asian elephants have cognitive abilities for tool use and tool making similar to great apes. They exhibit a wide variety of behaviours, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and language. Elephants are reported to go to safer ground during natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes, although there have been no scientific records of this since it is hard to recreate or predict natural disasters.

Several students of elephant cognition and neuroanatomy are convinced that Asian elephants are highly intelligent and self-aware. Others contest this view.

Asian elephants inhabit grasslands, tropical evergreen forests, semi-evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, dry deciduous forests and dry thorn forests, in addition to cultivated and secondary forests and scrublands. Over this range of habitat types elephants occur from sea level to over. In the eastern Himalaya in northeast India, they regularly move up above in summer at a few sites.

In China, the Asian elephant survives only in the prefectures of Xishuangbanna, Simao, and Lincang of southern Yunnan.

In Bangladesh, some isolated populations survive in the south-east Chittagong Hills. A herd of 20–25 wild elephants was reported as being present in the Garo Hills of Mymensingh in the late-1990s, being detached from a big herd in the Peack hills of India and prevented from returning by fences put up in the meantime by the Indian border security force. The herd was estimated at about 60 individuals in 2014.

Three subspecies are recognised:

The Borneo elephant occurs in Borneo's northern and northeastern parts. In 2003, mitochondrial DNA analysis and microsatellite data indicated that the Borneo elephant population is derived from stock that originated in the region of the Sunda Islands. The genetic divergence of Borneo elephants warrants their recognition as a separate Evolutionarily Significant Unit.

Elephants are crepuscular. They are classified as megaherbivores and consume up to of plant matter per day. They are generalist feeders, and both grazers and browsers, and were recorded to feed on 112 different plant species, most commonly of the order Malvales, and the legume, palm, sedge and true grass families. They browse more in the dry season with bark constituting a major part of their diet in the cool part of that season. They drink at least once a day and are never far from a permanent source of fresh water. They need 80–200 litres of water a day and use even more for bathing. At times, they scrape the soil for clay or minerals.

Adult females and calves move about together as groups, but adult males disperse from their mothers when reaching adolescence. Bull elephants are solitary or form temporary 'bachelor groups'.
Cow-calf units generally tend to be small, typically consisting of three adult most likely related females and their offspring. Larger groups of as many as 15 adult females have also been recorded.
Seasonal aggregations of 17 individuals including calves and subadults have been observed in Sri Lanka's Uda Walawe National Park. Until recently, Asian elephants, like African elephants, were thought to typically follow the leadership of older adult females, or matriarchs. But females form extensive and very fluid social networks, with varying degrees of associations between individuals. Social ties generally tend to be weaker than in African elephants.

Elephants are able to distinguish low amplitude sounds. They use infrasound to communicate.

Tigers have been recorded rarely attacking and killing calves especially if the calves become separated from their mothers, are stranded from their herd or are orphaned. Adults are largely invulnerable to natural predation. There is a singular anecdotal case of a mother Asian elephant allegedly being killed alongside her calf, however this may well be dubious.

Bulls will fight one another to get access to oestrous females. Strong fights over access to females are extremely rare. Bulls reach sexual maturity around the age of 12–15. Between the age of 10 and 20 years, bulls undergo an annual phenomenon known as "musth". This is a period where the testosterone level is up to 100 times greater than non-musth periods, and they become aggressive. Secretions containing pheromones occur during this period, from the paired temporal glands located on the head between the lateral edge of the eye and the base of the ear.

The gestation period is 18–22 months, and the female gives birth to one calf, only occasionally twins. The calf is fully developed by the 19th month, but stays in the womb to grow so that it can reach its mother to feed. At birth, the calf weighs about, and is suckled for up to three years. Once a female gives birth, she usually does not breed again until the first calf is weaned, resulting in a four to five year birth interval. Females stay on with the herd, but mature males are chased away.

Asiatic elephants reach adulthood at 17 years of age in both sexes. Elephants' life expectancy has been exaggerated in the past. They live on average for 60 years in the wild and 80 in captivity.

Generation length of the Asian elephant is 22 years.

Females produce sex pheromones. A principal component thereof, (Z)-7-dodecen-1-yl acetate, has also been found to be a sex pheromone in numerous species of insects.

At most seasons of the year, Asian elephants are timid and much more ready to flee from a foe than to attack. However, solitary rogues are frequently an exception to this rule, and sometimes make unprovoked attacks on passers-by. Rogue elephants sometimes take up a position near a road, making it impassable to travellers. Females with calves are at all times dangerous to approach. When an Asian elephant makes a charge, it tightly curls up its trunk and attacks by trampling its victim with feet or knees, or, if a male, by pinning it to the ground with its tusks. During musth, bulls are highly dangerous, not only to human beings, but also to other animals. At the first indications, trained elephants are secured tightly to prevent any mishaps. There is also one case of a rogue elephant having actually consumed a human, an attack merited to be extremely unnatural. The elephant, a rogue female, had previously lost her calf to an accident involving farmers. This grievous loss led the elephant to target humans first as a threat, and then as a food source as her mental state deteriorated until she was finally killed and later dissected, revealing through DNA analysis that she had indeed consumed human flesh. The incident was revealed to the general public in several articles and in the Animal Planet documentary "World's Deadliest Towns: Man-Eating Elephant".

The first historical record of the domestication of Asian elephants was in Harappan times. Ultimately, the elephant went on to become a siege engine, a mount in war, a status symbol, a beast of burden, and an elevated platform for hunting during historical times in South Asia.

Elephants have been captured from the wild and tamed for use by humans. Their ability to work under instruction makes them particularly useful for carrying heavy objects. They have been used particularly for timber-carrying in jungle areas. Other than their work use, they have been used in war, in ceremonies, and for carriage. It is reported that war elephants are still in use by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to take control of Kachin State in northern Myanmar from Myanmar's military. The KIA use about four dozen elephants to carry supplies. They have been used for their ability to travel over difficult terrain by hunters, for whom they served as mobile hunting platforms. The same purpose is met in safaris in modern times.

The pre-eminent threats to Asian elephants today are loss, degradation and fragmentation of habitat, leading in turn to increasing conflicts between humans and elephants. They are poached for ivory and a variety of other products including meat and leather.

One of the major instigators of human–wildlife conflict is competition for space. Destruction of forests through logging, encroachment, slash-and-burn, shifting cultivation, and monoculture tree plantations are major threats to the survival of elephants. Human–elephant conflicts occur when elephants raid crops of shifting cultivators in fields, which are scattered over a large area interspersed with forests. Depredation in human settlements is another major area of human–elephant conflict occurring in small forest pockets, encroachments into elephant habitat, and on elephant migration routes. Studies in Sri Lanka indicate that traditional slash-and-burn agriculture creates optimal habitat for elephants by creating a mosaic of successional-stage vegetation. Populations inhabiting small habitat fragments are much more liable to come into conflict with humans.

Human-elephant conflict is categorised into:Development such as border fencing along the India-Bangladesh border has become a major impediment to the free movement of elephants. In Assam, more than 1,150 humans and 370 elephants died as a result of human-elephant conflict between 1980 and 2003.
In India alone, over 400 people are killed by elephants every year, and 0.8 to 1 million hectares are damaged, affecting at least 500,000 families across the country. Moreover, elephants are known to destroy crops worth up to US$2–3 million annually. This has major impacts on the welfare and livelihoods of local communities, as well as the future conservation of this species. In countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the Asian elephant is easily one of the most feared wild animals, although they are certainly far less deadly than those such as venomous snakes (which were estimated to claim more than 30 times more lives in Sri Lanka than elephants). As a whole, Asian elephants are considered behaviorally unpredictable, most tend to avoid human activity, but if surprised or scared by human activity or a mother feeling protective of a calf, an elephant may suddenly charge, which is often very dangerous to a person if they are caught out on foot. Gunfire and other forms of hazing, which are known to be effective in other potentially dangerous wild animals in causing them to avoid humans, can have a negative effect in elephants. Elephants known to be abused by humans in the past are known to occasionally become "rogue elephants", which regularly attack people with no provocation.

The demand for ivory as a result of rapid economic development during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in East Asia, led to rampant poaching and the serious decline of elephants in many Asian and African range countries. In Thailand, the illegal trade in live elephants and ivory still flourishes. Although the quantity of worked ivory seen openly for sale has decreased substantially since 2001, Thailand still has one of the largest and most active ivory industries seen anywhere in the world. Tusks from Thai poached elephants also enter the market; between 1992 and 1997 at least 24 male elephants were killed for their tusks.

Up to the early 1990s, Vietnamese ivory craftsmen used exclusively Asian elephant ivory from Vietnam and neighbouring Lao PDR and Cambodia. Before 1990, there were few tourists and the low demand for worked ivory could be supplied by domestic elephants. Economic liberalisation and an increase in tourism raised both local and visitors’ demands for worked ivory, which resulted in heavy poaching.

The latest threat to endangered Asia elephants is high and increasing demand for elephant skin. The skin is used as an ingredient in Chinese medicine as well as in the manufacture of ornamental beads. The practice has been aided by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA), which has issued licences for the manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical products containing elephant skin, thereby making trading legal. In 2010 four skinned elephants were found in a Myanmar forest. Twenty-six elephants were killed by poachers in 2013. The number jumped to 61 in 2016. According to the NGO, Elephant Family, the main source of elephant skin is, at present, Myanmar, where a poaching crisis has developed rapidly since 2010.

Young elephants are captured and illegally imported to Thailand from Myanmar for use in the tourism industry; calves are used mainly in amusement parks and are trained to perform various stunts for tourists.

The calves are often subjected to a 'breaking in' process, which may involve being tied up, confined, starved, beaten and tortured; as a result, two-thirds may perish. Handlers use a technique known as the training crush, in which "handlers use sleep-deprivation, hunger, and thirst to "break" the elephants' spirit and make them submissive to their owners"; moreover, handlers drive nails into the elephants' ears and feet.

"Elephas maximus" is listed on CITES Appendix I.

Asian elephants are quintessential flagship species, deployed to catalyze a range of conservation goals, including:About half of the global zoo elephant population is kept in European zoos, where they have about half the median life span of conspecifics in protected populations in range countries. This discrepancy is clearest in Asian elephants: infant mortality is twice that seen in Burmese timber camps, and adult survivorship in zoos has not improved significantly in recent years. One risk factor for Asian zoo elephants is being moved between institutions, with early removal from the mother tending to have additional adverse effects. Another risk factor is being born into a zoo rather than being imported from the wild, with poor adult survivorship in zoo-born Asians apparently being conferred prenatally or in early infancy. Likely causes for compromised survivorship is stress and/or obesity.

Demographic analysis of captive Asian elephants in North America indicates that the population is not self-sustaining. First year mortality is nearly 30 per cent, and fecundity is extremely low throughout the prime reproductive years. Data from North American and European regional studbooks from 1962 to 2006 were analysed for deviation of the birth and juvenile death sex ratio. Of 349 captive calves born, 142 died prematurely. They died within one month of birth, major causes being stillbirth and infanticide by either the calf's mother or by one of the exhibition mates. The sex ratio of stillbirths in Europe was found to have a tendency for excess of males.

The elephant plays an important part in the culture of the subcontinent and beyond, being featured prominently in the "Panchatantra" fables and the Buddhist "Jataka" tales. They play a major role in Hinduism: the god Ganesha's head is that of an elephant, and the "blessings" of a temple elephant are highly valued. Elephants are frequently used in processions where the animals are adorned with festive outfits.

The elephant is depicted in several Indian manuscripts and treatises. Notable amongst these is the Matanga Lila (elephant sport) of Nilakantha. The manuscript Hastividyarnava is from Assam in northeast India.

In the Burmese, Thai and Sinhalese animal and planetary zodiac, the elephant, both tusked and tuskless, are the fourth and fifth animal zodiacs of the Burmese, the fourth animal zodiac of the Thai, and the second animal zodiac of the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Similarly, the elephant is the twelfth animal zodiac in the Dai animal zodiac of the Dai people in southern China.

In 2008, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60–75 years while CITES lists the species under Appendix I. Asian elephants once ranged from Syria and Iraq (the subspecies "Elephas maximus asurus"), to China (up to the Yellow River) and Java. It is now extinct in these areas, and the current range of Asian elephants is highly fragmented. The total population of Asian elephants is estimated to be around 40,000–50,000, although this may be a loose estimate. It is likely that around half of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats appears to be increasing.

Elephant

The elephants are the large mammals forming the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea. Three species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant ("Loxodonta africana"), the African forest elephant ("L. cyclotis"), and the Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus"). Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of the order Proboscidea; other, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, gomphotheres, mammoths, and mastodons.

All elephants have several distinctive features, the most notable of which is a long trunk (also called a proboscis), used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water, and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. Elephants' large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs.

Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. They prefer to stay near water. They are considered to be a keystone species due to their impact on their environments. Other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants while predators, such as lions, tigers, hyenas, and any wild dogs, usually target only young elephants (or "calves"). Elephants have a fission–fusion society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Females ("cows") tend to live in family groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups are led by an individual known as the matriarch, often the oldest cow.

Males ("bulls") leave their family groups when they reach puberty and may live alone or with other males. Adult bulls mostly interact with family groups when looking for a mate and enter a state of increased testosterone and aggression known as musth, which helps them gain dominance and reproductive success. Calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild. They communicate by touch, sight, smell, and sound; elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans. They appear to have self-awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind.

African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered. One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia. In the past, they were used in war; today, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have been featured in art, folklore, religion, literature, and popular culture.

The word "elephant" is based on the Latin "elephas" (genitive "elephantis") ("elephant"), which is the Latinised form of the Greek ἐλέφας ("elephas") (genitive ἐλέφαντος ("elephantos")), probably from a non-Indo-European language, likely Phoenician. It is attested in Mycenaean Greek as "e-re-pa" (genitive "e-re-pa-to") in Linear B syllabic script. As in Mycenaean Greek, Homer used the Greek word to mean ivory, but after the time of Herodotus, it also referred to the animal. The word "elephant" appears in Middle English as "olyfaunt" (c.1300) and was borrowed from Old French "oliphant" (12th century). "Loxodonta", the generic name for the African elephants, is Greek for "oblique-sided tooth".

Elephants belong to the family Elephantidae, the sole remaining family within the order Proboscidea which belongs to the superorder Afrotheria. Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria. Elephants and sirenians are further grouped in the clade Tethytheria. Three species of elephants are recognised; the African bush elephant ("Loxodonta africana") and forest elephant ("Loxodonta cyclotis") of sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus") of South and Southeast Asia. African elephants have larger ears, a concave back, more wrinkled skin, a sloping abdomen, and two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk. Asian elephants have smaller ears, a convex or level back, smoother skin, a horizontal abdomen that occasionally sags in the middle and one extension at the tip of the trunk. The looped ridges on the molars are narrower in the Asian elephant while those of the African are more diamond-shaped. The Asian elephant also has dorsal bumps on its head and some patches of depigmentation on its skin.

Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus first described the genus "Elephas" and an elephant from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) under the binomial "Elephas maximus" in 1758. In 1798, Georges Cuvier classified the Indian elephant under the binomial "Elephas indicus". Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck described the Sumatran elephant in 1847 under the binomial "Elephas sumatranus". English zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1940. Asian elephants vary geographically in their colour and amount of depigmentation. The Sri Lankan elephant ("Elephas maximus maximus") inhabits Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant ("E. m. indicus") is native to mainland Asia (on the Indian subcontinent and Indochina), and the Sumatran elephant ("E. m. sumatranus") is found in Sumatra. One disputed subspecies, the Borneo elephant, lives in northern Borneo and is smaller than all the other subspecies. It has larger ears, a longer tail, and straighter tusks than the typical elephant. Sri Lankan zoologist Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described it in 1950 under the trinomial "Elephas maximus borneensis", taking as his type an illustration in "National Geographic". It was subsequently subsumed under either "E. m. indicus" or "E. m. sumatranus". Results of a 2003 genetic analysis indicate its ancestors separated from the mainland population about 300,000 years ago. A 2008 study found that Borneo elephants are not indigenous to the island but were brought there before 1521 by the Sultan of Sulu from Java, where elephants are now extinct.

The African elephant was first named by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1797 as "Elephas africanus". The genus "Loxodonta" was named by Frédéric Cuvier in 1825. Cuvier spelled it "Loxodonte," but in 1827 an anonymous author romanised the spelling to "Loxodonta"; the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recognises this as the proper authority. In 1942, 18 subspecies of African elephant were recognised by Henry Fairfield Osborn, but further morphological data has reduced the number of classified subspecies, and by the 1990s, only two were recognised, the savannah or bush elephant ("L. a. africana") and the forest elephant ("L. a. cyclotis"), the latter having been named in 1900 by German zoologist Paul Matschie. Forest elephants have smaller and more rounded ears and thinner and straighter tusks than bush elephants, and are limited in range to the forested areas of western and Central Africa. A 2000 study argued for the elevation of the two forms into separate species ("L. africana" and "L. cyclotis" respectively) based on differences in skull morphology. DNA studies published in 2001 and 2007 also suggested they were distinct species while studies in 2002 and 2005 concluded that they were the same species. Further studies (2010, 2011, 2015) have supported African savannah and forest elephants' status as separate species. The two species are believed to have diverged 6 million years ago and have been completely genetically isolated for the past 500,000 years. In 2017, DNA sequence analysis showed that "L. cyclotis" is more closely related to the extinct "Palaeoloxodon antiquus", than it is to "L. africana," possibly undermining the genus Loxodonta as a whole. Some evidence suggests that elephants of western Africa are a separate species, although this is disputed. The pygmy elephants of the Congo Basin, which have been suggested to be a separate species ("Loxodonta pumilio") are probably forest elephants whose small size and/or early maturity are due to environmental conditions.

Over 185 extinct members and three major evolutionary radiations of the order Proboscidea have been recorded. The earliest proboscids, the African "Eritherium" and "Phosphatherium" of the late Paleocene, heralded the first radiation. The Eocene included "Numidotherium", "Moeritherium," and "Barytherium" from Africa. These animals were relatively small and aquatic. Later on, genera such as "Phiomia" and "Palaeomastodon" arose; the latter likely inhabited forests and open woodlands. Proboscidean diversity declined during the Oligocene. One notable species of this epoch was "Eritreum melakeghebrekristosi" of the Horn of Africa, which may have been an ancestor to several later species. The beginning of the Miocene saw the second diversification, with the appearance of the deinotheres and the mammutids. The former were related to "Barytherium" and lived in Africa and Eurasia, while the latter may have descended from "Eritreum" and spread to North America.

The second radiation was represented by the emergence of the gomphotheres in the Miocene, which likely evolved from "Eritreum" and originated in Africa, spreading to every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Members of this group included "Gomphotherium" and "Platybelodon". The third radiation started in the late Miocene and led to the arrival of the elephantids, which descended from, and slowly replaced, the gomphotheres. The African "Primelephas gomphotheroides" gave rise to "Loxodonta", "Mammuthus," and "Elephas". "Loxodonta" branched off earliest around the Miocene and Pliocene boundary while "Mammuthus" and "Elephas" diverged later during the early Pliocene. "Loxodonta" remained in Africa while "Mammuthus" and "Elephas" spread to Eurasia, and the former reached North America. At the same time, the stegodontids, another proboscidean group descended from gomphotheres, spread throughout Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, China, southeast Asia, and Japan. Mammutids continued to evolve into new species, such as the American mastodon.

At the beginning of the Pleistocene, elephantids experienced a high rate of speciation. The Pleistocene also saw the arrival of "Palaeoloxodon namadicus", the largest terrestrial mammal of all time. "Loxodonta atlantica" became the most common species in northern and southern Africa but was replaced by "Elephas iolensis" later in the Pleistocene. Only when "Elephas" disappeared from Africa did "Loxodonta" become dominant once again, this time in the form of the modern species. "Elephas" diversified into new species in Asia, such as "E. hysudricus" and "E. platycephus"; the latter the likely ancestor of the modern Asian elephant. "Mammuthus" evolved into several species, including the well-known woolly mammoth. Interbreeding appears to have been common among elephantid species, which in some cases led to species with three ancestral genetic components, such as the straight-tusked elephants. In the Late Pleistocene, most proboscidean species vanished during the Quaternary glaciation which killed off 50% of genera weighing over worldwide.

Proboscideans experienced several evolutionary trends, such as an increase in size, which led to many giant species that stood up to tall. As with other megaherbivores, including the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, the large size of elephants likely developed to allow them to survive on vegetation with low nutritional value. Their limbs grew longer and the feet shorter and broader. The feet were originally plantigrade and developed into a digitigrade stance with cushion pads and the sesamoid bone providing support. Early proboscideans developed longer mandibles and smaller craniums while more derived ones developed shorter mandibles, which shifted the head's centre of gravity. The skull grew larger, especially the cranium, while the neck shortened to provide better support for the skull. The increase in size led to the development and elongation of the mobile trunk to provide reach. The number of premolars, incisors and canines decreased. The cheek teeth (molars and premolars) became larger and more specialized, especially after elephants started to switch from C3-plants to C4-grasses, which caused their teeth to undergo a three-fold increase in teeth height as well as substantial multiplication of lamellae after about five million years ago. Only in the last million years or so did they return to a diet mainly consisting of C3 trees and shrubs. The upper second incisors grew into tusks, which varied in shape from straight, to curved (either upward or downward), to spiralled, depending on the species. Some proboscideans developed tusks from their lower incisors. Elephants retain certain features from their aquatic ancestry, such as their middle ear anatomy.

There has been some debate over the relationship of "Mammuthus" to "Loxodonta" or "Elephas". Some DNA studies suggest "Mammuthus" is more closely related to the former while others point to the latter. However, analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth (sequenced in 2005) supports "Mammuthus" being more closely related to "Elephas". Morphological evidence supports "Mammuthus" and "Elephas" as sister taxa while comparisons of protein albumin and collagen have concluded that all three genera are equally related to each other. Some scientists believe a cloned mammoth embryo could one day be implanted in an Asian elephant's womb.

Several species of proboscideans lived on islands and experienced insular dwarfism. This occurred primarily during the Pleistocene when some elephant populations became isolated by fluctuating sea levels, although dwarf elephants did exist earlier in the Pliocene. These elephants likely grew smaller on islands due to a lack of large or viable predator populations and limited resources. By contrast, small mammals such as rodents develop gigantism in these conditions. Dwarf proboscideans are known to have lived in Indonesia, the Channel Islands of California, and several islands of the Mediterranean.

"Elephas celebensis" of Sulawesi is believed to have descended from "Elephas planifrons". "Elephas falconeri" of Malta and Sicily was only and had probably evolved from the straight-tusked elephant. Other descendants of the straight-tusked elephant existed in Cyprus. Dwarf elephants of uncertain descent lived in Crete, Cyclades, and Dodecanese while dwarf mammoths are known to have lived in Sardinia. The Columbian mammoth colonised the Channel Islands and evolved into the pygmy mammoth. This species reached a height of and weighed. A population of small woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, now north of the Siberian coast, as recently as 4,000 years ago. After their discovery in 1993, they were considered dwarf mammoths. This classification has been re-evaluated and since the Second International Mammoth Conference in 1999, these animals are no longer considered to be true "dwarf mammoths".

Elephants are the largest living terrestrial animals. African bush elephants are the largest species, with males typically being tall at the shoulder and while females stand tall at the shoulder with a body mass of. Male Asian elephants are usually about tall at the shoulder and whereas females are tall at the shoulder and. African forest elephants are the smallest species, usually being around tall at the shoulder and. Male African elephants are typically 23% taller than females, whereas male Asian elephants are only around 15% taller than females. The skeleton of the elephant is made up of 326–351 bones. The vertebrae are connected by tight joints, which limit the backbone's flexibility. African elephants have 21 pairs of ribs, while Asian elephants have 19 or 20 pairs.

An elephant's skull is resilient enough to withstand the forces generated by the leverage of the tusks and head-to-head collisions. The back of the skull is flattened and spread out, creating arches that protect the brain in every direction. The skull contains air cavities (sinuses) that reduce the weight of the skull while maintaining overall strength. These cavities give the inside of the skull a honeycomb-like appearance. The cranium is particularly large and provides enough room for the attachment of muscles to support the entire head. The lower jaw is solid and heavy. Because of the size of the head, the neck is relatively short to provide better support. Lacking a lacrimal apparatus, the eye relies on the harderian gland to keep it moist. A durable nictitating membrane protects the eye globe. The animal's field of vision is compromised by the location and limited mobility of the eyes. Elephants are considered dichromats and they can see well in dim light but not in bright light. The core body temperature averages, similar to that of a human. Like all mammals, an elephant can raise or lower its temperature a few degrees from the average in response to extreme environmental conditions.

Elephant ears have thick bases with thin tips. The ear flaps, or pinnae, contain numerous blood vessels called capillaries. Warm blood flows into the capillaries, helping to release excess body heat into the environment. This occurs when the pinnae are still, and the animal can enhance the effect by flapping them. Larger ear surfaces contain more capillaries, and more heat can be released. Of all the elephants, African bush elephants live in the hottest climates, and have the largest ear flaps. Elephants are capable of hearing at low frequencies and are most sensitive at 1 kHz.

The trunk, or proboscis, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, although in early fetal life, the upper lip and trunk are separated. The trunk is elongated and specialised to become the elephant's most important and versatile appendage. It contains up to 150,000 separate muscle fascicles, with no bone and little fat. These paired muscles consist of two major types: superficial (surface) and internal. The former are divided into dorsals, ventrals, and laterals while the latter are divided into transverse and radiating muscles. The muscles of the trunk connect to a bony opening in the skull. The nasal septum is composed of tiny muscle units that stretch horizontally between the nostrils. Cartilage divides the nostrils at the base. As a muscular hydrostat, the trunk moves by precisely coordinated muscle contractions. The muscles work both with and against each other. A unique proboscis nerve – formed by the maxillary and facial nerves – runs along both sides of the trunk.

Elephant trunks have multiple functions, including breathing, olfaction, touching, grasping, and sound production. The animal's sense of smell may be four times as sensitive as that of a bloodhound. The trunk's ability to make powerful twisting and coiling movements allows it to collect food, wrestle with other elephants, and lift up to. It can be used for delicate tasks, such as wiping an eye and checking an orifice, and is capable of cracking a peanut shell without breaking the seed. With its trunk, an elephant can reach items at heights of up to and dig for water under mud or sand. Individuals may show lateral preference when grasping with their trunks: some prefer to twist them to the left, others to the right. Elephants can suck up water both to drink and to spray on their bodies. An adult Asian elephant is capable of holding of water in its trunk. They will also spray dust or grass on themselves. When underwater, the elephant uses its trunk as a snorkel.

The African elephant has two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk that allow it to grasp and bring food to its mouth. The Asian elephant has only one, and relies more on wrapping around a food item and squeezing it into its mouth. Asian elephants have more muscle coordination and can perform more complex tasks. Losing the trunk would be detrimental to an elephant's survival, although in rare cases, individuals have survived with shortened ones. One elephant has been observed to graze by kneeling on its front legs, raising on its hind legs and taking in grass with its lips. Floppy trunk syndrome is a condition of trunk paralysis in African bush elephants caused by the degradation of the peripheral nerves and muscles beginning at the tip.

Elephants usually have 26 teeth: the incisors, known as the tusks, 12 deciduous premolars, and 12 molars. Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth, elephants are polyphyodonts that have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their lives. The chewing teeth are replaced six times in a typical elephant's lifetime. Teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging from the jaws vertically as in most mammals. Instead, new teeth grow in at the back of the mouth and move forward to push out the old ones. The first chewing tooth on each side of the jaw falls out when the elephant is two to three years old. The second set of chewing teeth falls out at four to six years old. The third set falls out at 9–15 years of age, and set four lasts until 18–28 years of age. The fifth set of teeth falls out at the early 40s. The sixth (and usually final) set must last the elephant the rest of its life. Elephant teeth have loop-shaped dental ridges, which are thicker and more diamond-shaped in African elephants.

The tusks of an elephant are modified second incisors in the upper jaw. They replace deciduous milk teeth at 6–12 months of age and grow continuously at about a year. A newly developed tusk has a smooth enamel cap that eventually wears off. The dentine is known as ivory and its cross-section consists of crisscrossing line patterns, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped areas. As a piece of living tissue, a tusk is relatively soft; it is as hard as the mineral calcite. Much of the tusk can be seen outside; the rest is in a socket in the skull. At least one-third of the tusk contains the pulp and some have nerves stretching to the tip. Thus it would be difficult to remove it without harming the animal. When removed, ivory begins to dry up and crack if not kept cool and moist. Tusks serve multiple purposes. They are used for digging for water, salt, and roots; debarking or marking trees; and for moving trees and branches when clearing a path. When fighting, they are used to attack and defend, and to protect the trunk.

Like humans, who are typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually right- or left-tusked. The dominant tusk, called the master tusk, is generally more worn down, as it is shorter with a rounder tip. For the African elephants, tusks are present in both males and females, and are around the same length in both sexes, reaching up to, but those of males tend to be thicker. In earlier times, elephant tusks weighing over 200 pounds (more than 90 kg) were not uncommon, though it is rare today to see any over.

In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks. Female Asians have very small tusks, or none at all. Tuskless males exist and are particularly common among Sri Lankan elephants. Asian males can have tusks as long as Africans', but they are usually slimmer and lighter; the largest recorded was long and weighed. Hunting for elephant ivory in Africa and Asia has led to natural selection for shorter tusks and tusklessness.

An elephant's skin is generally very tough, at thick on the back and parts of the head. The skin around the mouth, anus, and inside of the ear is considerably thinner. Elephants typically have grey skin, but African elephants look brown or reddish after wallowing in coloured mud. Asian elephants have some patches of depigmentation, particularly on the forehead and ears and the areas around them. Calves have brownish or reddish hair, especially on the head and back. As elephants mature, their hair darkens and becomes sparser, but dense concentrations of hair and bristles remain on the end of the tail as well as the chin, genitals and the areas around the eyes and ear openings. Normally the skin of an Asian elephant is covered with more hair than its African counterpart.

An elephant uses mud as a sunscreen, protecting its skin from ultraviolet light. Although tough, an elephant's skin is very sensitive. Without regular mud baths to protect it from burning, insect bites and moisture loss, an elephant's skin suffers serious damage. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dust onto its body and this dries into a protective crust. Elephants have difficulty releasing heat through the skin because of their low surface-area-to-volume ratio, which is many times smaller than that of a human. They have even been observed lifting up their legs, presumably in an effort to expose their soles to the air.

To support the animal's weight, an elephant's limbs are positioned more vertically under the body than in most other mammals. The long bones of the limbs have cancellous bone in place of medullary cavities. This strengthens the bones while still allowing haematopoiesis. Both the front and hind limbs can support an elephant's weight, although 60% is borne by the front. Since the limb bones are placed on top of each other and under the body, an elephant can stand still for long periods of time without using much energy. Elephants are incapable of rotating their front legs, as the ulna and radius are fixed in pronation; the "palm" of the manus faces backward. The pronator quadratus and the pronator teres are either reduced or absent. The circular feet of an elephant have soft tissues or "cushion pads" beneath the manus or pes, which distribute the weight of the animal. They appear to have a sesamoid, an extra "toe" similar in placement to a giant panda's extra "thumb", that also helps in weight distribution. As many as five toenails can be found on both the front and hind feet.

Elephants can move both forwards and backwards, but cannot trot, jump, or gallop. They use only two gaits when moving on land: the walk and a faster gait similar to running. In walking, the legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders rising and falling while the foot is planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the fast gait does not meet all the criteria of running, although the elephant uses its legs much like other running animals, with the hips and shoulders falling and then rising while the feet are on the ground. Fast-moving elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their hind legs and can reach a top speed of. At this speed, most other quadrupeds are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg length. Spring-like kinetics could explain the difference between the motion of elephants and other animals. During locomotion, the cushion pads expand and contract, and reduce both the pain and noise that would come from a very heavy animal moving. Elephants are capable swimmers. They have been recorded swimming for up to six hours without touching the bottom, and have travelled as far as at a stretch and at speeds of up to.

The brain of an elephant weighs compared to for a human brain. While the elephant brain is larger overall, it is proportionally smaller. At birth, an elephant's brain already weighs 30–40% of its adult weight. The cerebrum and cerebellum are well developed, and the temporal lobes are so large that they bulge out laterally. The throat of an elephant appears to contain a pouch where it can store water for later use.

The heart of an elephant weighs. It has a double-pointed apex, an unusual trait among mammals. In addition, the ventricles separate near the top of the heart, a trait they share with sirenians. When standing, the elephant's heart beats approximately 30 times per minute. Unlike many other animals, the heart rate speeds up by 8 to 10 beats per minute when the elephant is lying down. The blood vessels in most of the body are wide and thick and can withstand high blood pressures. The lungs are attached to the diaphragm, and breathing relies mainly on the diaphragm rather than the expansion of the ribcage. Connective tissue exists in place of the pleural cavity. This may allow the animal to deal with the pressure differences when its body is underwater and its trunk is breaking the surface for air, although this explanation has been questioned. Another possible function for this adaptation is that it helps the animal suck up water through the trunk. Elephants inhale mostly through the trunk, although some air goes through the mouth. They have a hindgut fermentation system, and their large and small intestines together reach in length. The majority of an elephant's food intake goes undigested despite the process lasting up to a day.

A male elephant's testes are located internally near the kidneys. The elephant's penis can reach a length of and a diameter of at the base. It is S-shaped when fully erect and has a Y-shaped orifice. The female has a well-developed clitoris at up to. The vulva is located between the hind legs instead of near the tail as in most mammals. Determining pregnancy status can be difficult due to the animal's large abdominal cavity. The female's mammary glands occupy the space between the front legs, which puts the suckling calf within reach of the female's trunk. Elephants have a unique organ, the temporal gland, located in both sides of the head. This organ is associated with sexual behaviour, and males secrete a fluid from it when in musth. Females have also been observed with secretions from the temporal glands.

The African bush elephant can be found in habitats as diverse as dry savannahs, deserts, marshes, and lake shores, and in elevations from sea level to mountain areas above the snow line. Forest elephants mainly live in equatorial forests but will enter gallery forests and ecotones between forests and savannahs. Asian elephants prefer areas with a mix of grasses, low woody plants, and trees, primarily inhabiting dry thorn-scrub forests in southern India and Sri Lanka and evergreen forests in Malaya. Elephants are herbivorous and will eat leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, grass and roots. They are born with sterile intestines and require bacteria obtained from their mother's feces to digest vegetation. African elephants are mostly browsers while Asian elephants are mainly grazers. They can consume as much as of food and of water in a day. Elephants tend to stay near water sources. Major feeding bouts take place in the morning, afternoon and night. At midday, elephants rest under trees and may doze off while standing. Sleeping occurs at night while the animal is lying down. Elephants average 3–4 hours of sleep per day. Both males and family groups typically move a day, but distances as far as have been recorded in the Etosha region of Namibia. Elephants go on seasonal migrations in search of food, water, minerals, and mates. At Chobe National Park, Botswana, herds travel to visit the river when the local waterholes dry up.

Because of their large size, elephants have a huge impact on their environments and are considered keystone species. Their habit of uprooting trees and undergrowth can transform savannah into grasslands; when they dig for water during drought, they create waterholes that can be used by other animals. They can enlarge waterholes when they bathe and wallow in them. At Mount Elgon, elephants excavate caves that are used by ungulates, hyraxes, bats, birds and insects. Elephants are important seed dispersers; African forest elephants ingest and defecate seeds, with either no effect or a positive effect on germination. The seeds are typically dispersed in large amounts over great distances. In Asian forests, large seeds require giant herbivores like elephants and rhinoceros for transport and dispersal. This ecological niche cannot be filled by the next largest herbivore, the tapir. Because most of the food elephants eat goes undigested, their dung can provide food for other animals, such as dung beetles and monkeys. Elephants can have a negative impact on ecosystems. At Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, the overabundance of elephants has threatened several species of small birds that depend on woodlands. Their weight can compact the soil, which causes the rain to run off, leading to erosion.

Elephants typically coexist peacefully with other herbivores, which will usually stay out of their way. Some aggressive interactions between elephants and rhinoceros have been recorded. At Aberdare National Park, Kenya, a rhino attacked an elephant calf and was killed by the other elephants in the group. At Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, South Africa, introduced young orphan elephants went on a killing spree that claimed the lives of 36 rhinos during the 1990s, but ended with the introduction of older males. The size of adult elephants makes them nearly invulnerable to predators, though there are rare reports of adult elephants falling prey to tigers. Calves may be preyed on by lions, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs in Africa and tigers in Asia. The lions of Savuti, Botswana, have adapted to hunting juvenile elephants during the dry season, and a pride of 30 lions has been recorded killing juvenile individuals between the ages of four and eleven years. Elephants appear to distinguish between the growls of larger predators like tigers and smaller predators like leopards (which have not been recorded killing calves); they react to leopards less fearfully and more aggressively. Elephants tend to have high numbers of parasites, particularly nematodes, compared to other herbivores. This is due to lower predation pressures that would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads.

Female elephants spend their entire lives in tight-knit matrilineal family groups, some of which are made up of more than ten members, including three pairs of mothers with offspring, and are led by the matriarch which is often the eldest female. She remains leader of the group until death or if she no longer has the energy for the role; a study on zoo elephants showed that when the matriarch died, the levels of faecal corticosterone ('stress hormone') dramatically increased in the surviving elephants. When her tenure is over, the matriarch's eldest daughter takes her place; this occurs even if her sister is present. The older matriarchs tend to be more effective decision-makers.

The social circle of the female elephant does not necessarily end with the small family unit. In the case of elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, a female's life involves interaction with other families, clans, and subpopulations. Families may associate and bond with each other, forming what are known as bond groups. These are typically made of two family groups, which may be closely related due to previously being part of the same family group which split after becoming too large for the available resources. During the dry season, elephant families may cluster together and form another level of social organisation known as the clan. Groups within these clans do not form strong bonds, but they defend their dry-season ranges against other clans. There are typically nine groups in a clan. The Amboseli elephant population is further divided into the "central" and "peripheral" subpopulations.

Some elephant populations in India and Sri Lanka have similar basic social organisations. There appear to be cohesive family units and loose aggregations. They have been observed to have "nursing units" and "juvenile-care units". In southern India, elephant populations may contain family groups, bond groups and possibly clans. Family groups tend to be small, consisting of one or two adult females and their offspring. A group containing more than two adult females plus offspring is known as a "joint family". Malay elephant populations have even smaller family units, and do not have any social organisation higher than a family or bond group. Groups of African forest elephants typically consist of one adult female with one to three offspring. These groups appear to interact with each other, especially at forest clearings.

The social life of the adult male is very different. As he matures, a male spends more time at the edge of his group and associates with outside males or even other families. At Amboseli, young males spend over 80% of their time away from their families when they are 14–15. When males permanently leave, they either live alone or with other males. The former is typical of bulls in dense forests. Asian males are usually solitary, but occasionally form groups of two or more individuals; the largest consisted of seven bulls. Larger bull groups consisting of over 10 members occur only among African bush elephants, the largest of which numbered up to 144 individuals. These elephants can be quite sociable when not competing for dominance or mates, and will form long-term relationships. A dominance hierarchy exists among males, whether they range socially or solitarily. Dominance depends on the age, size and sexual condition, and when in groups, males follow the lead of the dominant bull. Young bulls may seek out the company and leadership of older, more experienced males, whose presence appears to control their aggression and prevent them from exhibiting "deviant" behaviour. Adult males and females come together for reproduction. Bulls associate with family groups if an oestrous cow is present.

Adult males enter a state of increased testosterone known as musth. In a population in southern India, males first enter musth at the age of 15, but it is not very intense until they are older than 25. At Amboseli, bulls under 24 do not go into musth, while half of those aged 25–35 and all those over 35 do. Young bulls appear to enter musth during the dry season (January–May), while older bulls go through it during the wet season (June–December). The main characteristic of a bull's musth is a fluid secreted from the temporal gland that runs down the side of his face. He may urinate with his penis still in his sheath, which causes the urine to spray on his hind legs. Behaviours associated with musth include walking with the head held high and swinging, picking at the ground with the tusks, marking, rumbling and waving only one ear at a time. This can last from a day to four months.

Males become extremely aggressive during musth. Size is the determining factor in agonistic encounters when the individuals have the same condition. In contests between musth and non-musth individuals, musth bulls win the majority of the time, even when the non-musth bull is larger. A male may stop showing signs of musth when he encounters a musth male of higher rank. Those of equal rank tend to avoid each other. Agonistic encounters typically consist of threat displays, chases, and minor sparring with the tusks. Serious fights are rare.

Elephants are polygynous breeders, and copulations are most frequent during the peak of the wet season. A cow in oestrus releases chemical signals (pheromones) in her urine and vaginal secretions to signal her readiness to mate. A bull will follow a potential mate and assess her condition with the flehmen response, which requires the male to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and bring it to the vomeronasal organ. The oestrous cycle of a cow lasts 14–16 weeks with a 4–6-week follicular phase and an 8- to 10-week luteal phase. While most mammals have one surge of luteinizing hormone during the follicular phase, elephants have two. The first (or anovulatory) surge, could signal to males that the female is in oestrus by changing her scent, but ovulation does not occur until the second (or ovulatory) surge. Fertility rates in cows decline around 45–50 years of age.

Bulls engage in a behaviour known as mate-guarding, where they follow oestrous females and defend them from other males. Most mate-guarding is done by musth males, and females actively seek to be guarded by them, particularly older ones. Thus these bulls have more reproductive success. Musth appears to signal to females the condition of the male, as weak or injured males do not have normal musths. For young females, the approach of an older bull can be intimidating, so her relatives stay nearby to provide support and reassurance. During copulation, the male lays his trunk over the female's back. The penis is very mobile, being able to move independently of the pelvis. Prior to mounting, it curves forward and upward. Copulation lasts about 45 seconds and does not involve pelvic thrusting or ejaculatory pause. Elephant sperm must swim close to to reach the egg. By comparison, human sperm has to swim around only.

Homosexual behaviour is frequent in both sexes. As in heterosexual interactions, this involves mounting. Male elephants sometimes stimulate each other by playfighting and "championships" may form between old bulls and younger males. Female same-sex behaviours have been documented only in captivity where they are known to masturbate one another with their trunks.

Gestation in elephants typically lasts around two years with interbirth intervals usually lasting four to five years. Births tend to take place during the wet season. Calves are born tall and weigh around. Typically, only a single young is born, but twins sometimes occur. The relatively long pregnancy is maintained by five corpus luteums (as opposed to one in most mammals) and gives the foetus more time to develop, particularly the brain and trunk. As such, newborn elephants are precocial and quickly stand and walk to follow their mother and family herd. A new calf is usually the centre of attention for herd members. Adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother is intolerant of other herd members near her young. Alloparenting – where a calf is cared for by someone other than its mother – takes place in some family groups. Allomothers are typically two to twelve years old. When a predator is near, the family group gathers together with the calves in the centre.

For the first few days, the newborn is unsteady on its feet, and needs the support of its mother. It relies on touch, smell, and hearing, as its eyesight is poor. It has little precise control over its trunk, which wiggles around and may cause it to trip. By its second week of life, the calf can walk more firmly and has more control over its trunk. After its first month, a calf can pick up, hold, and put objects in its mouth, but cannot suck water through the trunk and must drink directly through the mouth. It is still dependent on its mother and keeps close to her.

For its first three months, a calf relies entirely on milk from its mother for nutrition, after which it begins to forage for vegetation and can use its trunk to collect water. At the same time, improvements in lip and leg coordination occur. Calves continue to suckle at the same rate as before until their sixth month, after which they become more independent when feeding. By nine months, mouth, trunk and foot coordination is perfected. After a year, a calf's abilities to groom, drink, and feed itself are fully developed. It still needs its mother for nutrition and protection from predators for at least another year. Suckling bouts tend to last 2–4 min/hr for a calf younger than a year and it continues to suckle until it reaches three years of age or older. Suckling after two years may serve to maintain growth rate, body condition and reproductive ability.

Play behaviour in calves differs between the sexes; females run or chase each other while males play-fight. The former are sexually mature by the age of nine years while the latter become mature around 14–15 years. Adulthood starts at about 18 years of age in both sexes. Elephants have long lifespans, reaching 60–70 years of age. Lin Wang, a captive male Asian elephant, lived for 86 years.

Touching is an important form of communication among elephants. Individuals greet each other by stroking or wrapping their trunks; the latter also occurs during mild competition. Older elephants use trunk-slaps, kicks, and shoves to discipline younger ones. Individuals of any age and sex will touch each other's mouths, temporal glands, and genitals, particularly during meetings or when excited. This allows individuals to pick up chemical cues. Touching is especially important for mother–calf communication. When moving, elephant mothers will touch their calves with their trunks or feet when side-by-side or with their tails if the calf is behind them. If a calf wants to rest, it will press against its mother's front legs and when it wants to suckle, it will touch her breast or leg.

Visual displays mostly occur in agonistic situations. Elephants will try to appear more threatening by raising their heads and spreading their ears. They may add to the display by shaking their heads and snapping their ears, as well as throwing dust and vegetation. They are usually bluffing when performing these actions. Excited elephants may raise their trunks. Submissive ones will lower their heads and trunks, as well as flatten their ears against their necks, while those that accept a challenge will position their ears in a V shape.

Elephants produce several sounds, usually through the larynx, though some may be modified by the trunk. Perhaps the most well known call is the trumpet which is made by blowing through the trunk. Trumpeting is made during excitement, distress or aggression. Fighting elephants may roar or squeal, and wounded ones may bellow. Rumbles are produced during mild arousal and some appear to be infrasonic. Infrasonic calls are important, particularly for long-distance communication, in both Asian and African elephants. For Asian elephants, these calls have a frequency of 14–24 Hz, with sound pressure levels of 85–90 dB and last 10–15 seconds. For African elephants, calls range from 15–35 Hz with sound pressure levels as high as 117 dB, allowing communication for many kilometres, with a possible maximum range of around.

At Amboseli, several different infrasonic calls have been identified. A greeting rumble is emitted by members of a family group after having been separated for several hours. Contact calls are soft, unmodulated sounds made by individuals that have been separated from their group and may be responded to with a "contact answer" call that starts out loud, but becomes softer. A "let's go" soft rumble is emitted by the matriarch to signal to the other herd members that it is time to move to another spot. Bulls in musth emit a distinctive, low-frequency pulsated rumble nicknamed the "motorcycle". Musth rumbles may be answered by the "female chorus", a low-frequency, modulated chorus produced by several cows. A loud postcopulatory call may be made by an oestrous cow after mating. When a cow has mated, her family may produce calls of excitement known as the "mating pandemonium".

Elephants are known to communicate with seismics, vibrations produced by impacts on the earth's surface or acoustical waves that travel through it. They appear to rely on their leg and shoulder bones to transmit the signals to the middle ear. When detecting seismic signals, the animals lean forward and put more weight on their larger front feet; this is known as the "freezing behaviour". Elephants possess several adaptations suited for seismic communication. The cushion pads of the feet contain cartilaginous nodes and have similarities to the acoustic fat found in marine mammals like toothed whales and sirenians. A unique sphincter-like muscle around the ear canal constricts the passageway, thereby dampening acoustic signals and allowing the animal to hear more seismic signals. Elephants appear to use seismics for a number of purposes. An individual running or mock charging can create seismic signals that can be heard at great distances. When detecting the seismics of an alarm call signalling danger from predators, elephants enter a defensive posture and family groups will pack together. Seismic waveforms produced by locomotion appear to travel distances of up to while those from vocalisations travel.

Elephants exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition that has also been demonstrated in some apes and dolphins. One study of a captive female Asian elephant suggested the animal was capable of learning and distinguishing between several visual and some acoustic discrimination pairs. This individual was even able to score a high accuracy rating when re-tested with the same visual pairs a year later. Elephants are among the species known to use tools. An Asian elephant has been observed modifying branches and using them as flyswatters. Tool modification by these animals is not as advanced as that of chimpanzees. Elephants are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory. This could have a factual basis; they possibly have cognitive maps to allow them to remember large-scale spaces over long periods of time. Individuals appear to be able to keep track of the current location of their family members.

Scientists debate the extent to which elephants feel emotion. They appear to show interest in the bones of their own kind, regardless of whether they are related. As with chimps and dolphins, a dying or dead elephant may elicit attention and aid from others, including those from other groups. This has been interpreted as expressing "concern"; however, others would dispute such an interpretation as being anthropomorphic; the "Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour" (1987) advised that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion".

African elephants were listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2008, with no independent assessment of the conservation status of the two forms. In 1979, Africa had an estimated minimum population of 1.3 million elephants, with a possible upper limit of 3.0 million. By 1989, the population was estimated to be 609,000; with 277,000 in Central Africa, 110,000 in eastern Africa, 204,000 in southern Africa, and 19,000 in western Africa. About 214,000 elephants were estimated to live in the rainforests, fewer than had previously been thought. From 1977 to 1989, elephant populations declined by 74% in East Africa. After 1987, losses in elephant numbers accelerated, and savannah populations from Cameroon to Somalia experienced a decline of 80%. African forest elephants had a total loss of 43%. Population trends in southern Africa were mixed, with anecdotal reports of losses in Zambia, Mozambique and Angola while populations grew in Botswana and Zimbabwe and were stable in South Africa. Conversely, studies in 2005 and 2007 found populations in eastern and southern Africa were increasing by an average annual rate of 4.0%. Due to the vast areas involved, assessing the total African elephant population remains difficult and involves an element of guesswork. The IUCN estimates a total of around 440,000 individuals for 2012 while TRAFFIC estimates as many as 55 are poached daily.

African elephants receive at least some legal protection in every country where they are found, but 70% of their range exists outside protected areas. Successful conservation efforts in certain areas have led to high population densities. As of 2008, local numbers were controlled by contraception or translocation. Large-scale cullings ceased in 1988, when Zimbabwe abandoned the practice. In 1989, the African elephant was listed under Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), making trade illegal. Appendix II status (which allows restricted trade) was given to elephants in Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe in 1997 and South Africa in 2000. In some countries, sport hunting of the animals is legal; Botswana, Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have CITES export quotas for elephant trophies. In June 2016, the First Lady of Kenya, Margaret Kenyatta, helped launch the East Africa Grass-Root Elephant Education Campaign Walk, organised by elephant conservationist Jim Nyamu. The event was conducted to raise awareness of the value of elephants and rhinos, to help mitigate human-elephant conflicts, and to promote anti-poaching activities.

The poaching of elephants for their ivory, meat and hides has been one of the major threats to their existence. Historically, numerous cultures made ornaments and other works of art from elephant ivory, and its use rivalled that of gold. The ivory trade contributed to the African elephant population decline in the late 20th century. This prompted international bans on ivory imports, starting with the United States in June 1989, and followed by bans in other North American countries, western European countries, and Japan. Around the same time, Kenya destroyed all its ivory stocks. CITES approved an international ban on ivory that went into effect in January 1990. Following the bans, unemployment rose in India and China, where the ivory industry was important economically. By contrast, Japan and Hong Kong, which were also part of the industry, were able to adapt and were not badly affected. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi wanted to continue the ivory trade and were allowed to, since their local elephant populations were healthy, but only if their supplies were from elephants that had been culled or died of natural causes.

The ban allowed the elephant to recover in parts of Africa. In January 2012, 650 elephants in Bouba Njida National Park, Cameroon, were killed by Chadian raiders. This has been called "one of the worst concentrated killings" since the ivory ban. Asian elephants are potentially less vulnerable to the ivory trade, as females usually lack tusks. Still, members of the species have been killed for their ivory in some areas, such as Periyar National Park in India. China was the biggest market for poached ivory but announced they would phase out the legal domestic manufacture and sale of ivory products in May 2015, and in September 2015, China and the United States said "they would enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory" due to causes of extinction.

Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and fragmentation. The Asian elephant lives in areas with some of the highest human populations. Because they need larger amounts of land than other sympatric terrestrial mammals, they are the first to be affected by human encroachment. In extreme cases, elephants may be confined to small islands of forest among human-dominated landscapes. Elephants cannot coexist with humans in agricultural areas due to their size and food requirements. Elephants commonly trample and consume crops, which contributes to conflicts with humans, and both elephants and humans have died by the hundreds as a result. Mitigating these conflicts is important for conservation. One proposed solution is the provision of ‘urban corridors’ which allow the animals access to key areas.

Elephants have been working animals since at least the Indus Valley Civilization and continue to be used in modern times. There were 13,000–16,500 working elephants employed in Asia in 2000. These animals are typically captured from the wild when they are 10–20 years old when they can be trained quickly and easily, and will have a longer working life. They were traditionally captured with traps and lassos, but since 1950, tranquillisers have been used.

Individuals of the Asian species have been often trained as working animals. Asian elephants perform tasks such as hauling loads into remote areas, moving logs to rivers and roads, transporting tourists around national parks, pulling wagons, and leading religious processions. In northern Thailand, the animals are used to digest coffee beans for Black Ivory coffee. They are valued over mechanised tools because they can work in relatively deep water, require relatively little maintenance, need only vegetation and water as fuel and can be trained to memorise specific tasks. Elephants can be trained to respond to over 30 commands. Musth bulls can be difficult and dangerous to work with and are chained and semi-starved until the condition passes. In India, many working elephants are alleged to have been subject to abuse. They and other captive elephants are thus protected under The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960.

In both Myanmar and Thailand, deforestation and other economic factors have resulted in sizable populations of unemployed elephants resulting in health problems for the elephants themselves as well as economic and safety problems for the people amongst whom they live.

The practice of working elephants has also been attempted in Africa. The taming of African elephants in the Belgian Congo began by decree of Leopold II of Belgium during the 19th century and continues to the present with the Api Elephant Domestication Centre.

Historically, elephants were considered formidable instruments of war. They were equipped with armour to protect their sides, and their tusks were given sharp points of iron or brass if they were large enough. War elephants were trained to grasp an enemy soldier and toss him to the person riding on them or to pin the soldier to the ground and impale him.

One of the earliest references to war elephants is in the Indian epic "Mahabharata" (written in the 4th century BC, but said to describe events between the 11th and 8th centuries BC). They were not used as much as horse-drawn chariots by either the Pandavas or Kauravas. During the Magadha Kingdom (which began in the 6th century BC), elephants began to achieve greater cultural importance than horses, and later Indian kingdoms used war elephants extensively; 3,000 of them were used in the Nandas (5th and 4th centuries BC) army while 9,000 may have been used in the Mauryan army (between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC). The "Arthashastra" (written around 300 BC) advised the Mauryan government to reserve some forests for wild elephants for use in the army, and to execute anyone who killed them. From South Asia, the use of elephants in warfare spread west to Persia and east to Southeast Asia. The Persians used them during the Achaemenid Empire (between the 6th and 4th centuries BC) while Southeast Asian states first used war elephants possibly as early as the 5th century BC and continued to the 20th century.

In his 326 B.C. Indian campaign, Alexander the Great confronted elephants for the first time, and suffered heavy casualties. Among the reasons for the refusal of the rank-and-file Macedonian soldiers to continue the Indian conquest were rumors of even larger elephant armies in India. Alexander trained his foot soldiers to injure the animals and cause them to panic during wars with both the Persians and Indians. Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander's generals, used corps of Asian elephants during his reign as the ruler of Egypt (which began in 323 BC). His son and successor Ptolemy II (who began his rule in 285 BC) obtained his supply of elephants further south in Nubia. From then on, war elephants were employed in the Mediterranean and North Africa throughout the classical period. The Greek king Pyrrhus used elephants in his attempted invasion of Rome in 280 BC. While they frightened the Roman horses, they were not decisive and Pyrrhus ultimately lost the battle. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps during his war with the Romans and reached the Po Valley in 217 BC with all of them alive, but they later succumbed to disease.

Overall, elephants owed their initial successes to the element of surprise and to the fear that their great size invoked. With time, strategists devised counter-measures and war elephants turned into an expensive liability and were hardly ever used by Romans and Parthians.

Elephants were historically kept for display in the menageries of Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. The Romans in particular pitted them against humans and other animals in gladiator events. In the modern era, elephants have traditionally been a major part of zoos and circuses around the world. In circuses, they are trained to perform tricks. The most famous circus elephant was probably Jumbo (1861 – 15 September 1885), who was a major attraction in the Barnum & Bailey Circus. These animals do not reproduce well in captivity, due to the difficulty of handling musth bulls and limited understanding of female oestrous cycles. Asian elephants were always more common than their African counterparts in modern zoos and circuses. After CITES listed the Asian elephant under Appendix I in 1975, the number of African elephants in zoos increased in the 1980s, although the import of Asians continued. Subsequently, the US received many of its captive African elephants from Zimbabwe, which had an overabundance of the animals. As of 2000, around 1,200 Asian and 700 African elephants were kept in zoos and circuses. The largest captive population is in North America, which has an estimated 370 Asian and 350 African elephants. About 380 Asians and 190 Africans are known to exist in Europe, and Japan has around 70 Asians and 67 Africans.
Keeping elephants in zoos has met with some controversy. Proponents of zoos argue that they offer researchers easy access to the animals and provide money and expertise for preserving their natural habitats, as well as safekeeping for the species. Critics claim that the animals in zoos are under physical and mental stress. Elephants have been recorded displaying stereotypical behaviours in the form of swaying back and forth, trunk swaying, or route tracing. This has been observed in 54% of individuals in UK zoos. Elephants in European zoos appear to have shorter lifespans than their wild counterparts at only 17 years, although other studies suggest that zoo elephants live as long those in the wild.

The use of elephants in circuses has also been controversial; the Humane Society of the United States has accused circuses of mistreating and distressing their animals. In testimony to a US federal court in 2009, Barnum & Bailey Circus CEO Kenneth Feld acknowledged that circus elephants are struck behind their ears, under their chins and on their legs with metal-tipped prods, called bull hooks or ankus. Feld stated that these practices are necessary to protect circus workers and acknowledged that an elephant trainer was reprimanded for using an electric shock device, known as a hot shot or electric prod, on an elephant. Despite this, he denied that any of these practices harm elephants. Some trainers have tried to train elephants without the use of physical punishment. Ralph Helfer is known to have relied on gentleness and reward when training his animals, including elephants and lions. Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus retired its touring elephants in May 2016.

Elephants can exhibit bouts of aggressive behaviour and engage in destructive actions against humans. In Africa, groups of adolescent elephants damaged homes in villages after cullings in the 1970s and 1980s. Because of the timing, these attacks have been interpreted as vindictive. In parts of India, male elephants regularly enter villages at night, destroying homes and killing people. Elephants killed around 300 people between 2000 and 2004 in Jharkhand while in Assam, 239 people were reportedly killed between 2001 and 2006.
Local people have reported their belief that some elephants were drunk during their attacks, although officials have disputed this explanation. Purportedly drunk elephants attacked an Indian village a second time in December 2002, killing six people, which led to the killing of about 200 elephants by locals.

In many cultures, elephants represent strength, power, wisdom, longevity, stamina, leadership, sociability, nurturance and loyalty. Several cultural references emphasise the elephant's size and exotic uniqueness. For instance, a "white elephant" is a byword for something expensive, useless, and bizarre. The expression "elephant in the room" refers to an obvious truth that is ignored or otherwise unaddressed. The story of the blind men and an elephant teaches that reality may be viewed by different perspectives.

Elephants have been represented in art since Paleolithic times. Africa, in particular, contains many rock paintings and engravings of the animals, especially in the Sahara and southern Africa. In Asia, the animals are depicted as motifs in Jain, Hindu and Buddhist shrines and temples. Elephants were often difficult to portray by people with no first-hand experience with them. The ancient Romans, who kept the animals in captivity, depicted anatomically accurate elephants on mosaics in Tunisia and Sicily. At the beginning of the Middle Ages when Europeans had little to no access to the animals, elephants were portrayed more like fantasy creatures. They were often depicted with horse- or bovine-like bodies with trumpet-like trunks and tusks like a boar; some were even given hooves. Elephants were commonly featured in motifs by the stonemasons of the Gothic churches. As more elephants began to be sent to European kings as gifts during the 15th century, depictions of them became more accurate, including one made by Leonardo da Vinci. Despite this, some Europeans continued to portray them in a more stylised fashion. Max Ernst's 1921 surrealist painting, "The Elephant Celebes," depicts an elephant as a silo with a trunk-like hose protruding from it.

Elephants have been the subject of religious beliefs. The Mbuti people of central Africa believe that the souls of their dead ancestors resided in elephants. Similar ideas existed among other African tribes, who believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. During the 10th century AD, the people of Igbo-Ukwu, near the Niger Delta, buried their leaders with elephant tusks. The animals' religious importance is only totemic in Africa but is much more significant in Asia. In Sumatra, elephants have been associated with lightning. Likewise in Hinduism, they are linked with thunderstorms as Airavata, the father of all elephants, represents both lightning and rainbows. One of the most important Hindu deities, the elephant-headed Ganesha, is ranked equal with the supreme gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Ganesha is associated with writers and merchants and it is believed that he can give people success as well as grant them their desires. In Buddhism, Buddha is said to have been a white elephant reincarnated as a human. According to Buddhist mythology, Gautama Buddha's mother, Maya, dreamt that a white elephant enter her womb. The astrologers of the king's court interpreted this dream as the impending birth of a great person who would either become a 'Chakravartin' (conqueror of the world) or a great sage. In Islamic tradition, the year 570 when Muhammad was born is known as the Year of the Elephant. Elephants were thought to be religious themselves by the Romans, who believed that they worshipped the sun and stars.

Elephants are ubiquitous in Western popular culture as emblems of the exotic, especially since – as with the giraffe, hippopotamus and rhinoceros – there are no similar animals familiar to Western audiences. The use of the elephant as a symbol of the US Republican Party began with an 1874 cartoon by Thomas Nast. As characters, elephants are most common in children's stories, in which they are generally cast as models of exemplary behaviour. They are typically surrogates for humans with ideal human values. Many stories tell of isolated young elephants returning to a close-knit community, such as "The Elephant's Child" from Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories", Disney's "Dumbo," and Kathryn and Byron Jackson's "The Saggy Baggy Elephant". Other elephant heroes given human qualities include Jean de Brunhoff's Babar, David McKee's Elmer, and Dr. Seuss's Horton.