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A recent study of ancient and modern elephants has come up with the unexpected conclusion
that the African elephant is divided into two distinct (不同的) species.
The discovery was made by researchers at York and Harvard Universities when they were
examining the genetic relationship between the ancient woolly mammoth and mastodon to
modern elephants-the Asian elephant, African forest elephant,and African savanna elephant.
Once they obtained DNA sequences (序列) from two fossils (化石), mammoths and mastodons,
the team compared them with DNA from modern elephants.They found to their amazement that modern forest and savanna elephants are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants and
mammoths.
The scientists used detailed genetic analysis to prove that the African savanna elephant and
the African forest elephant have been distinct species for several million years.The divergence
of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of Asian elephants and woolly
mammoths.This result amazed all the scientists.
There has long been debate in the scientific community that the two might be separate
species, but this is the most convincing scientific evidence so far that they are indeed different
species.
Previously, many naturalists believed that African savanna elephants and African forest
elephants were two populations of the same species, despite the elephants' significant size
differences.The savanna elephant has an average shoulder height of 3.5 metres while the forest elephant has an average shoulder height of 2.5 metres.The savanna elephant weighs between six and seven tons, roughly double the weight of the forest elephant.But the fact that they look so
different does not necessarily mean they are different species.However the proof lay in the
analysis of the DNA.
Alfred Roca, assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of
Illinois, said, "We now have to treat the forest and savanna elephants as two different units for
conservation purposes.Since 1950, all African elephants have been conserved as one species.
Now that we know the forest and savanna elephants are two very distinctive animals, the forest elephant should become a bigger priority(优先) for conservation purposes."
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