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Elephant

Elephants are the largest living land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana), the African forest elephant (L. cyclotis), and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea; extinct relatives include mammoths and mastodons. Distinctive features of elephants include a long proboscis called a trunk, tusks, large ear flaps, pillar-like legs, and tough but sensitive grey skin. The trunk is prehensile, bringing food and water to the mouth and grasping objects. Tusks, which are derived from the incisor teeth, serve both as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. The large ear flaps assist in maintaining a constant body temperature as well as in communication. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs.

Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and are found in different habitats, including savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. They are herbivorous, and they stay near water when it is accessible. They are considered to be keystone species, due to their impact on their environments. 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 leader of a female group, usually the oldest cow, is known as the matriarch.

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. They enter a state of increased testosterone and aggression known as musth, which helps them gain dominance over other males as well as 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 possibly show concern for dying and dead individuals of their kind.

African bush elephants and Asian elephants are listed as endangered and African forest elephants as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 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 employed for entertainment in circuses. Elephants have an iconic status in human culture and have been widely featured in art, folklore, religion, literature, and popular culture.

Etymology
The word elephant is derived from the Latin word elephas (genitive elephantis) elephant, which is the Latinised form of the ancient Greek ἐλέφας (genitive ἐλέφαντος ), probably from a non-Indo-European language, likely Phoenician. It is attested in Mycenaean Greek as (genitive ) 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).

Taxonomy
Elephants belong to the family Elephantidae, the sole remaining family within the order Proboscidea. 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 living elephants are recognised; the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana), forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), and Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). African elephants were traditionally considered a single species, Loxodonta africana, but molecular studies have affirmed their status as separate species. Mammoths (Mammuthus) are nested within living elephants as they are more closely related to Asian elephants than to African elephants. Another extinct genus of elephant, Palaeoloxodon, is also recognised, which appears to have close affinities with African elephants and to have hybridised with African forest elephants.

Evolution
Over 180 extinct members of order Proboscidea have been described. The earliest proboscideans, the African Eritherium and Phosphatherium are known from the late Paleocene. The Eocene included Numidotherium, Moeritherium, and Barytherium from Africa. These animals were relatively small and, some, like Moeritherium and Barytherium were probably amphibious. Later on, genera such as Phiomia and Palaeomastodon arose; the latter likely inhabited more forested areas. Proboscidean diversification changed little 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.

A major event in proboscidean evolution was the collision of Afro-Arabia with Eurasia, during the Early Miocene, around 18–19 million years ago, allowing proboscideans to disperse from their African homeland across Eurasia and later, around 16–15 million years ago into North America across the Bering Land Bridge. Proboscidean groups prominent during the Miocene include the deinotheres, along with the more advanced elephantimorphs, including mammutids (mastodons), gomphotheres, amebelodontids (which includes the "shovel tuskers" like Platybelodon), choerolophodontids and stegodontids. Around 10 million years ago, the earliest members of the family Elephantidae emerged in Africa, having originated from gomphotheres.

Elephantids are distinguished from earlier proboscideans by a major shift in the molar morphology to parallel lophs rather than the cusps of earlier proboscideans, allowing them to become higher-crowned (hypsodont) and more efficient in consuming grass. The Late Miocene saw major climactic changes, which resulted in the decline and extinction of many proboscidean groups. The earliest members of the modern genera of Elephantidae appeared during the latest Miocene–early Pliocene around 5 million years ago. The elephantid genera Elephas (which includes the living Asian elephant) and Mammuthus (mammoths) migrated out of Africa during the late Pliocene, around 3.6 to 3.2 million years ago.

Over the course of the Early Pleistocene, all non-elephantid probobscidean genera outside of the Americas became extinct with the exception of Stegodon, with gomphotheres dispersing into South America as part of the Great American interchange, and mammoths migrating into North America around 1.5 million years ago. At the end of the Early Pleistocene, around 800,000 years ago the elephantid genus Palaeoloxodon dispersed outside of Africa, becoming widely distributed in Eurasia. Proboscideans were represented by around 23 species at the beginning of the Late Pleistocene. Proboscideans underwent a dramatic decline during the Late Pleistocene as part of the Late Pleistocene extinctions of most large mammals globally, with all remaining non-elephantid proboscideans (including Stegodon, mastodons, and the American gomphotheres Cuvieronius and Notiomastodon) and Palaeoloxodon becoming extinct, with mammoths only surviving in relict populations on islands around the Bering Strait into the Holocene, with their latest survival being on Wrangel Island, where they persisted until around 4,000 years ago.

Over the course of their evolution, probobscideans grew in size. With that came longer limbs and wider feet with a more digitigrade stance, along with a larger head and shorter neck. The trunk evolved and grew longer to provide reach. The number of premolars, incisors, and canines decreased, and the cheek teeth (molars and premolars) became longer and more specialised. The incisors developed into tusks of different shapes and sizes. Several species of proboscideans became isolated on islands and experienced insular dwarfism, some dramatically reducing in body size, such as the 1 m tall dwarf elephant species Palaeoloxodon falconeri.

Anatomy
Elephants are the largest living terrestrial animals. The skeleton 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. 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. By contrast, the lower jaw is dense. The cranium is particularly large and provides enough room for the attachment of muscles to support the entire head. The skull is built to withstand great stress, particularly when fighting or using the tusks. The brain is surrounded by arches in the skull, which serve as protection. Because of the size of the head, the neck is relatively short to provide better support. Elephants are homeotherms and maintain their average body temperature at ~ 36 °C (97 °F), with a minimum of 35.2 °C (95.4 °F) during the cool season, and a maximum of 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) during the hot dry season.

Ears and eyes
Elephant ear flaps, or pinnae, are 1 – thick in the middle with a thinner tip and supported by a thicker base. They contain numerous blood vessels called capillaries. Warm blood flows into the capillaries, releasing excess heat into the environment. This effect is increased by flapping the ears back and forth. 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. The ossicles are adapted for hearing low frequencies, being most sensitive at 1 kHz.

Lacking a lacrimal apparatus (tear duct), the eye relies on the harderian gland in the orbit to keep it moist. A durable nictitating membrane shields the globe. The animal's field of vision is compromised by the location and limited mobility of the eyes. Elephants are dichromats and they can see well in dim light but not in bright light.

Trunk
The elongated and prehensile trunk, or proboscis, consists of both the nose and upper lip, which fuse in early fetal development. This versatile appendage 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 dorsal, ventral, and lateral muscles, 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 consists of small elastic muscles between the nostrils, which are divided by cartilage at the base. A unique proboscis nerve – a combination of the maxillary and facial nerves – lines each side of the appendage.

As a muscular hydrostat, the trunk moves through finely controlled muscle contractions, working both with and against each other. Using three basic movements: bending, twisting, and longitudinal stretching or retracting, the trunk has near unlimited flexibility. Objects grasped by the end of the trunk can be moved to the mouth by curving the appendage inward. The trunk can also bend at different points by creating stiffened "pseudo-joints". The tip can be moved in a way similar to the human hand. The skin is more elastic on the dorsal side of the elephant trunk than underneath; allowing the animal to stretch and coil while maintaining a strong grasp. The African elephants have two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk that allow them to pluck small food. The Asian elephant has only one and relies more on wrapping around a food item. Asian elephant trunks have better motor coordination. The trunk's extreme flexibility allows it to forage and wrestle other elephants with it. It is powerful enough to lift up to 350 kg, but it also has the precision to crack a peanut shell without breaking the seed. With its trunk, an elephant can reach items up to 7 m high and dig for water in the mud or sand below. It also uses it to clean itself. Individuals may show lateral preference when grasping with their trunks: some prefer to twist them to the left, others to the right. Elephant trunks are capable of powerful siphoning. They can expand their nostrils by 30%, leading to a 64% greater nasal volume, and can breathe in almost 30 times faster than a human sneeze, at over 150 m/s. They suck up water, which is squirted into the mouth or over the body. The trunk of an adult Asian elephant is capable of retaining 8.5 L of water. They will also sprinkle dust or grass on themselves. When underwater, the elephant uses its trunk as a snorkel.

The trunk also acts as a sense organ. Its sense of smell may be four times greater than a bloodhound's nose. The infraorbital nerve, which makes the trunk sensitive to touch, is thicker than both the optic and auditory nerves. Whiskers grow all along the trunk, and are particularly packed at the tip, where they contribute to its tactile sensitivity. Unlike those of many mammals, such as cats and rats, elephant whiskers do not move independently ("whisk") to sense the environment; the trunk itself must move to bring the whiskers into contact with nearby objects. Whiskers grow in rows along each side on the ventral surface of the trunk, which is thought to be essential in helping elephants balance objects there, whereas they are more evenly arranged on the dorsal surface. The number and patterns of whiskers are distinctly different between species.

Damaging the trunk would be detrimental to an elephant's survival, although in rare cases, individuals have survived with shortened ones. One trunkless elephant has been observed to graze using its lips with its hind legs in the air and balancing on its front knees. Floppy trunk syndrome is a condition of trunk paralysis recorded in African bush elephants and involves the degeneration of the peripheral nerves and muscles. The disorder has been linked to lead poisoning.

Teeth
Elephants usually have 26 teeth: the incisors, known as the tusks; 12 deciduous premolars; and 12 molars. Unlike most mammals, teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging from the jaws vertically. Instead, new teeth start at the back of the mouth and 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. This is followed by four more tooth replacements at the ages of four to six, 9–15, 18–28, and finally in their early 40s. The final (usually sixth) set must last the elephant the rest of its life. Elephant teeth have loop-shaped dental ridges, which are more diamond-shaped in African elephants.

Tusks
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 keep growing at about 17 cm a year. As the tusk develops, it is topped with smooth, cone-shaped enamel that eventually wanes. The dentine is known as ivory and has a cross-section of intersecting lines, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped patterns. Being living tissue, tusks are fairly soft and about as dense as the mineral calcite. The tusk protrudes from a socket in the skull, and most of it is external. At least one-third of the tusk contains the pulp, and some have nerves that stretch even further. Thus, it would be difficult to remove it without harming the animal. When removed, ivory will dry up and crack if not kept cool and wet. Tusks function in digging, debarking, marking, moving objects, and fighting.

Elephants are usually right- or left-tusked, similar to humans, who are typically right- or left-handed. The dominant, or "master" tusk, is typically more worn down, as it is shorter and blunter. For African elephants, tusks are present in both males and females and are around the same length in both sexes, reaching up to 300 cm, but those of males tend to be more massive. 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 302 cm long and weighed 39 kg. Hunting for elephant ivory in Africa and Asia has led to natural selection for shorter tusks and tusklessness.

Skin
An elephant's skin is generally very tough, at 2.5 cm thick on the back and parts of the head. The skin around the mouth, anus, and inside of the ear is considerably thinner. Elephants are typically grey, but African elephants look brown or reddish after rolling in coloured mud. Asian elephants have some patches of depigmentation, particularly on the head. Calves have brownish or reddish hair, with the head and back being particularly hairy. As elephants mature, their hair darkens and becomes sparser, but dense concentrations of hair and bristles remain on the tip of the tail and parts of the head and genitals. Normally, the skin of an Asian elephant is covered with more hair than its African counterpart. Their hair is thought to help them lose heat in their hot environments.

Although tough, an elephant's skin is very sensitive and requires mud baths to maintain moisture and protection from burning and insect bites. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dust onto its body, which 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 to expose their soles to the air. Elephants only have sweat glands between the toes, but the skin allows water to disperse and evaporate, cooling the animal. In addition, cracks in the skin may reduce dehydration and allow for increased thermal regulation in the long term.

Legs, locomotion, and posture
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 bones in place of medullary cavities. This strengthens the bones while still allowing haematopoiesis (blood cell creation). Both the front and hind limbs can support an elephant's weight, although 60% is borne by the front. The position of the limbs and leg bones allows an elephant to stand still for extended periods of time without tiring. Elephants are incapable of turning their manus as the ulna and radius of the front legs are secured in pronation. Elephants may also lack the pronator quadratus and pronator teres muscles or have very small ones. The circular feet of an elephant have soft tissues, or "cushion pads" beneath the manus or pes, which allow them to bear the animal's great mass. 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 forward and backward, but are incapable of trotting, jumping, or galloping. They can move on land only by walking or ambling: a faster gait similar to running. In walking, the legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders moving up and down while the foot is planted on the ground. The fast gait does not meet all the criteria of running, since there is no point where all the feet are off the ground, although the elephant uses its legs much like other running animals, and can move faster by quickening its stride. Fast-moving elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their hind legs and can reach a top speed of 25 km/h. 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. 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 can swim for up to six hours while completely waterborne, moving at 2.1 km/h and traversing up to 48 km continuously.

Internal systems
The brain of an elephant weighs 4.5 – compared to 1.6 kg for a human brain. It is the largest of all terrestrial mammals. While the elephant brain is larger overall, it is proportionally smaller than the human brain. 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. Their temporal lobes are proportionally larger than those of other animals, including humans. The throat of an elephant appears to contain a pouch where it can store water for later use. The larynx of the elephant is the largest known among mammals. The vocal folds are anchored close to the epiglottis base. When comparing an elephant's vocal folds to those of a human, an elephant's are proportionally longer, thicker, with a greater cross-sectional area. In addition, they are located further up the vocal tract with an acute slope. The heart of an elephant weighs 12 –. Its apex has two pointed ends, an unusual trait among mammals. In addition, the ventricles of the heart split towards the top, a trait also found in sirenians. When upright, the elephant's heart beats around 28 beats per minute and actually speeds up to 35 beats when it lies down. The blood vessels are thick and wide and can hold up under high blood pressure. The lungs are attached to the diaphragm, and breathing relies less on the expanding 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. Elephants breathe mostly with the trunk but also with the mouth. They have a hindgut fermentation system, and their large and small intestines together reach 35 m in length. Less than half of an elephant's food intake gets digested, despite the process lasting a day. An elephant's kidneys can produce more than 50 litres of urine per day.

Sex characteristics
A male elephant's testes, like other Afrotheria, are internally located near the kidneys. The penis can be as long as 100 cm with a 16 cm wide base. It curves to an 'S' when fully erect and has an orifice shaped like a Y. The female's clitoris may be 40 cm. The vulva is found lower than in other herbivores, between the hind legs instead of under the tail. Determining pregnancy status can be difficult due to the animal's large belly. 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 on 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 these secretions.

Behaviour and ecology
Elephants are herbivorous and will eat leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, grass, and roots. African elephants mostly browse, while Asian elephants mainly graze. They can eat as much as 300 kg of food and drink 40 L of water in a day. Elephants tend to stay near water sources. They have morning, afternoon, and nighttime feeding sessions. 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 no more than 20 km a day, but distances as far as 180 km have been recorded in the Etosha region of Namibia. Elephants go on seasonal migrations in response to changes in environmental conditions. In northern Botswana, they travel 325 km to the Chobe River after the local waterholes dry up in late August.

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; smaller herbivores can access trees mowed down by elephants. When they dig for water during droughts, they create waterholes that can be used by other animals. When they use waterholes, they end up making them bigger. At Mount Elgon, elephants dig through caves and pave the way for ungulates, hyraxes, bats, birds, and insects. Elephants are important seed dispersers; African forest elephants consume and deposit many seeds over great distances, with either no effect or a positive effect on germination. In Asian forests, large seeds require giant herbivores like elephants and rhinoceros for transport and dispersal. This ecological niche cannot be filled by the smaller Malayan 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, elephant numbers have threatened several species of small birds that depend on woodlands. Their weight causes the soil to compress, leading to runoff and 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. The size of adult elephants makes them nearly invulnerable to predators. 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 elephants, targeting calves, juveniles or even sub-adults. There are rare reports of adult Asian elephants falling prey to tigers. Elephants tend to have high numbers of parasites, particularly nematodes, compared to many other mammals. This may be due to elephants being less vulnerable to predation; in other mammal species, individuals weakened by significant parasite loads are easily killed off by predators, removing them from the population.

Social organisation
Elephants are generally gregarious animals. African bush elephants in particular have a complex, stratified social structure. Female elephants spend their entire lives in tight-knit matrilineal family groups. They are led by the matriarch, who 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 found that the death of the matriarch led to greater stress in the surviving elephants. When her tenure is over, the matriarch's eldest daughter takes her place instead of her sister (if present). One study found that younger matriarchs take potential threats less seriously. Large family groups may split if they cannot be supported by local resources.

At Amboseli National Park, Kenya, female groups may consist of around ten members, including four adults and their dependent offspring. Here, a cow's life involves interaction with those outside her group. Two separate families may associate and bond with each other, forming what are known as bond groups. During the dry season, elephant families may aggregate into clans. These may number around nine groups, in which clans do not form strong bonds but defend their dry-season ranges against other clans. The Amboseli elephant population is further divided into the "central" and "peripheral" subpopulations.

Female Asian elephants tend to have more fluid social associations. In Sri Lanka, there appear to be stable family units or "herds" and larger, looser "groups". 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, with only one or two adult females and their offspring. A group containing more than two cows and their offspring is known as a "joint family". Malay elephant populations have even smaller family units and do not reach levels above a bond group. Groups of African forest elephants typically consist of one cow with one to three offspring. These groups appear to interact with each other, especially at forest clearings.

Adult males live separate lives. As he matures, a bull associates more with outside males or even other families. At Amboseli, young males may be away from their families 80% of the time by 14–15 years of age. When males permanently leave, they either live alone or with other males. The former is typical of bulls in dense forests. A dominance hierarchy exists among males, whether they are social or solitary. Dominance depends on age, size, and sexual condition. Male elephants can be quite sociable when not competing for mates and form vast and fluid social networks. Older bulls act as the leaders of these groups. The presence of older males appears to subdue the aggression and "deviant" behaviour of younger ones. The largest all-male groups can reach close to 150 individuals. Adult males and females come together to breed. Bulls will accompany family groups if a cow is in oestrous.

Musth
Adult males enter a state of increased testosterone known as musth. In a population in southern India, males first enter musth at 15 years old, but it is not very intense until they are older than 25. At Amboseli, no bulls under 24 were found to be in musth, while half of those aged 25–35 and all those over 35 were. In some areas, there may be seasonal influences on the timing of musths. The main characteristic of a bull's musth is a fluid discharged from the temporal gland that runs down the side of his face. Behaviours associated with musth include walking with a high and swinging head, nonsynchronous ear flapping, picking at the ground with the tusks, marking, rumbling, and urinating in the sheath. The length of this varies between males of different ages and conditions, lasting from days to 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. Rarely do they full-on fight.

Mating
Elephants are polygynous breeders, and most copulations occur during rainfall. An oestrous cow uses 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 him to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and taste it with the vomeronasal organ at the roof of the mouth. The oestrous cycle of a cow lasts 14–16 weeks, with the follicular phase lasting 4–6 weeks and the luteal phase lasting 8–10 weeks. While most mammals have one surge of luteinizing hormone during the follicular phase, elephants have two. The first (or anovulatory) surge, appears to change the female's scent, signaling to males that she is in heat, but ovulation does not occur until the second (or ovulatory) surge. Cows over 45–50 years of age are less fertile.

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 seek them out, particularly older ones. 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 for comfort. During copulation, the male rests his trunk on the female. The penis is mobile enough to move without the pelvis. Before mounting, it curves forward and upward. Copulation lasts about 45 seconds and does not involve pelvic thrusting or an ejaculatory pause.

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 engage in mutual masturbation with their trunks.

Birth and development
Gestation in elephants typically lasts between one and a half and two years and the female will not give birth again for at least four years. The relatively long pregnancy is supported by several corpus luteums and gives the foetus more time to develop, particularly the brain and trunk. Births tend to take place during the wet season. Typically, only a single young is born, but twins sometimes occur. Calves are born roughly 85 cm tall and with a weight of around 120 kg. They are precocial and quickly stand and walk to follow their mother and family herd. A newborn calf will attract the attention of all the 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 limits access to her young. Alloparenting – where a calf is cared for by someone other than its mother – takes place in some family groups. Allomothers are typically aged two to twelve years.

For the first few days, the newborn is unsteady on its feet and needs its mother's help. It relies on touch, smell, and hearing, as its eyesight is less developed. With little coordination in its trunk, it can only flop it around which may cause it to trip. When it reaches its second week, the calf can walk with more balance and has more control over its trunk. After its first month, the trunk can grab and hold objects but still lacks sucking abilities, and the calf must bend down to drink. It continues to stay near its mother as it is still reliant on her. For its first three months, a calf relies entirely on its mother's milk, after which it begins to forage for vegetation and can use its trunk to collect water. At the same time, there is progress in lip and leg movements. By nine months, mouth, trunk, and foot coordination are mastered. Suckling bouts tend to last 2–4 min/hr for a calf younger than a year. After a year, a calf is fully capable of grooming, drinking, and feeding itself. It still needs its mother's milk and protection until it is at least two years old. Suckling after two years may improve growth, health, and fertility.

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.

Communication
Elephants communicate in various ways. Individuals greet one another by touching each other on the mouth, temporal glands, and genitals. This allows them to pick up chemical cues. Older elephants use trunk-slaps, kicks, and shoves to control younger ones. 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. A calf will press against its mother's front legs to signal it wants to rest and will touch her breast or leg when it wants to suckle.

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 tossing around dust and vegetation. They are usually bluffing when performing these actions. Excited elephants also raise their heads and spread their ears but additionally may raise their trunks. Submissive elephants will lower their heads and trunks, as well as flatten their ears against their necks, while those that are ready to fight will bend their ears in a V shape.

Elephants produce several vocalisations—some of which pass though the trunk —for both short and long range communication. This includes trumpeting, bellowing, roaring, growling, barking, snorting, and rumbling. Elephants can produce infrasonic rumbles. 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 to 35 Hz with sound pressure levels as high as 117 dB, allowing communication for many kilometres, possibly over 10 km. Elephants are known to communicate with seismics, vibrations produced by impacts on the earth's surface or acoustical waves that travel through it. An individual foot stomping or mock charging can create seismic signals that can be heard at travel distances of up to 32 km. Seismic waveforms produced by rumbles travel 16 km.

Intelligence and cognition
Elephants are among the most intelligent animals. They 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 fine-tuning branches for use 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 which give them long lasting memories of their environment on a wide scale. Individuals may be able to remember where their family members are located.

Scientists debate the extent to which elephants feel emotion. They are attracted to the bones of their own kind, regardless of whether they are related. As with chimpanzees 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, the Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour (1987) said that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion".

Status
African bush elephants were listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2021, and African forest elephants were listed as Critically Endangered in the same year. In 1979, Africa had an estimated population of at least 1.3 million elephants, possibly as high as 3.0 million. A decade later, 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. The population of rainforest elephants was lower than anticipated, at around 214,000 individuals. Between 1977 and 1989, elephant populations declined by 74% in East Africa. After 1987, losses in elephant numbers hastened, 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 various, with unconfirmed losses in Zambia, Mozambique and Angola while populations grew in Botswana and Zimbabwe and were stable in South Africa. The IUCN estimated that total population in Africa is estimated at to 415,000 individuals for both species combined as of 2016.

African elephants receive at least some legal protection in every country where they are found. Successful conservation efforts in certain areas have led to high population densities while failures have led to declines as high as 70% or more of the course of ten years. As of 2008, local numbers were controlled by contraception or translocation. Large-scale cullings stopped in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 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 2020, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to the population declining by half over "the last three generations". Asian elephants once ranged from Western to East Asia and south to Sumatra. 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. Around 60% of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats may have stabilised.

Threats
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 was comparable to that of gold. The ivory trade contributed to the fall of the African elephant population 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. Ivory was banned internationally by CITES in 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 as badly affected. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi wanted to continue the ivory trade and were allowed to, since their local populations were healthy, but only if their supplies were from culled individuals or those that died of natural causes.

The ban allowed the elephant to recover in parts of Africa. In February 2012, 650 elephants in Bouba Njida National Park, Cameroon, were slaughtered 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 and may be confined to small islands of forest among human-dominated landscapes. 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 protection of wildlife corridors which give populations greater interconnectivity and space. Chili pepper products as well as guarding with defense tools have been found to be effective in preventing crop-raiding by elephants. Less effective tactics include beehive and electric fences.

Working animal
Elephants have been working animals since at least the Indus Valley civilization over 4,000 years ago 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 are both more trainable and can work for more years. 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 are used to carry and pull both objects and people in and out of areas as well as lead people in religious celebrations. They are valued over mechanised tools as they can perform the same tasks but in more difficult terrain, with strength, memory, and delicacy. Elephants can learn over 30 commands. Musth bulls are difficult and dangerous to work with and so are chained up until their 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.

Warfare
Historically, elephants were considered formidable instruments of war. They were described in Sanskrit texts as far back as 1500 BC. 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. War elephants were also employed in the Mediterranean and North Africa throughout the classical period since the reign of Ptolemy II in Egypt. The Carthaginian general Hannibal famously took African elephants across the Alps during his war with the Romans and reached the Po Valley in 218 BC with all of them alive, but died of disease and combat a year later.

An elephant's head and sides were equipped with armour, the trunk may have had a sword tied to it and tusks were sometimes covered with sharpened iron or brass. Trained elephants would attack both humans and horses with their tusks. They might have grasped an enemy soldier with the trunk and tossed him to their mahout, or pinned the soldier to the ground and speared him. Some shortcomings of war elephants included their great visibility, which made them easy to target, and limited maneuverability compared to horses. Alexander the Great achieved victory over armies with war elephants by having his soldiers injure the trunks and legs of the animals which caused them to panic and become uncontrollable.

Zoos and circuses
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, imports of the species almost stopped by the end of the 1980s. Subsequently, the US received many captive African elephants from Zimbabwe, which had an overabundance of the animals.

Keeping elephants in zoos has met with some controversy. Proponents of zoos argue that they allow easy access to the animals and provide fund and knowledge for preserving their natural habitats, as well as safekeeping for the species. Opponents claim that animals in zoos are under physical and mental stress. Elephants have been recorded displaying stereotypical behaviours in the form of wobbling the body or head and pacing the same route both forwards and backwards. 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 just as long.

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 rebuked for using an electric prod on an elephant. Despite this, he denied that any of these practices hurt the animals. Some trainers have tried to train elephants without the use of physical punishment. Ralph Helfer is known to have relied on positive reinforcement when training his animals. Barnum and Bailey circus retired its touring elephants in May 2016.

Attacks
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 have entered villages at night, destroying homes and killing people. From 2000 to 2004, 300 people died in Jharkhand, and in Assam, 239 people were reportedly killed between 2001 and 2006. Throughout the country, 1,500 people were killed by elephants between 2019 and 2022, which led to 300 elephants being killed in kind. Local people have reported that some elephants were drunk during the attacks, though officials have disputed this. Purportedly drunk elephants attacked an Indian village in December 2002, killing six people, which led to the retaliatory slaughter of about 200 elephants by locals.

Cultural significance
Elephants have a universal presence in global culture. They have been represented in art since Paleolithic times. Africa, in particular, contains many examples of elephant rock art, especially in the Sahara and southern Africa. In Asia, the animals are depicted as motifs in Hindu and Buddhist shrines and temples. Elephants were often difficult to portray by people with no first-hand experience of them. The ancient Romans, who kept the animals in captivity, depicted elephants more accurately than medieval Europeans who portrayed them more like fantasy creatures, with horse, bovine, and boar-like traits, and trumpet-like trunks. As Europeans gained more access to captive elephants during the 15th century, depictions of them became more accurate, including one made by Leonardo da Vinci. 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 societies, who believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. During the 10th century AD, the people of Igbo-Ukwu, in modern-day Nigeria, placed elephant tusks underneath their dead leader's feet in the grave. The animals' 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 in some traditions. Ganesha is associated with writers and merchants, and it is believed that he can give people success as well as grant them their desires, but could also take these things away. In Buddhism, Buddha is said to have been a white elephant reincarnated as a human.

In Western popular culture, elephants symbolise the exotic, especially since – as with the giraffe, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros – there are no similar animals familiar to Western audiences. As characters, elephants are most common in children's stories, where they are portrayed positively. They are typically surrogates for humans with ideal human values. Many stories tell of isolated young elephants returning to or finding a family, 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.

Several cultural references emphasise the elephant's size and strangeness. For instance, a "white elephant" is a byword for something that is weird, unwanted, and has no value. The expression "elephant in the room" refers to something that is being ignored but ultimately must be addressed. The story of the blind men and an elephant involves blind men touching different parts of an elephant and trying to figure out what it is.

title: Elephant


text:
Talk:Elephant/Archive 3

SLONS
Some time ago, I heard smtg like this on the NPR: "Slons (Sloans, Slouns, Slones...) were Mammoth size animals, that lived long ago..." Can someone help, how to spell the word, and what kind animal is that. I made a search over the internet on all possible spellings, but failed. I am intrigued, because S-L-O-N is the all-slavic-language word for elephant.

Conservation Status
Is not listed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.160.89 (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The African Elepahnts have two, the Asian Elephants have one... They are located at the tip of their trunks and serve to grab things... But how are they called? By professionals that is...Undead Herle King 23:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Slons are good —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.250.3 (talk) 08:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Size
How heavy are elephants? The article lists a newborn's weight and that of the heaviest elephant found, but no average. A weight range for males and one for females would, I think, be imperitive to this article.

Does it make any sense at all to describe the weight of the worlds largest elephant to three significant figures, when the initial measurement was to two significant figures, and was an estimate at that? Guinness reports an elephant shot in 1974 to four figures (12.24 tonnes - http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=51172 ) Danil Suits 06:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The Smithsonian, aka Fenykovi, elephant is the 12 ton elephant shot in 1954. The guinness elephant was shot in 1974 and is the 12.24 tonne elephant. They were both killed in Angola. It would make more sense to use the 1974 figure as it was deemed larger under the same (if not greater) degree of scrutiny. The Fenykovi elephant (which at one point Wikipedia misrepresented as Elephas recki) is interesting in its own right. The skull weighed 1800 lbs (elephant skulls, despite being quite strong, are relatively light for their size to offset the weight of the trunk and tusks) and the skin alone weighed two tons.

the size is an exaggerate. From where do you get that fig. of 12 ton elephant 1954 Angola? And from where it reads the skin alone weighed two tons? Hey, the average Afri. elephant stands 2.8m and weigh 4500 kg(male). How can it grow to 8 tons, let alone 12 tons. 1974 fig. is just an estimate, and accord. to guinness 2006, it measured 3.96m on lying, not 4.2m. People tend to get too excited about size and weight. Complete bullshit! Todays, it's exceedingly hard to find an ele reaching 3.6m tall and over 6.5 tons. So, The 1954 fig. is WORTHLESS.

useful resource page
can we add please? www.geocities.com/RainForest/8298

I humbly submit my agreement that this extremely valuable resource page be added as a reference. The merits are numerous and, I should think, obvious to even the most casual viewer. First of all, these breeds of elephant are exceedingly rare and beautiful. I was priveleged enough to catch one in person and, I must tell you, I have not been the same since. The vicarious viewing of this beautiful specimen, as this page allows, offers a similar life changing experience for even the most jaded internet user.

Dear Wikipedians -- this is a page that deserves to be seen by the world. I hope, deeply, that you agree with my assessment, and take it into your deepest consideration.--194.25.159.210 17:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

African elephant population: actual figures
The total African elephant population appears to have been more or less stable for more than a decade (down tenfold from a half century ago). Some regions of Africa are dealing with local elephant overpopulations, most regions are not. When reporting 2002 estimates of 1,460,000 (probable) to 1,560,000 (possible) African elephants, researchers noted that this represented an increase over their 1998 figures (360,000 probable, 500,000 possible) suggestive of incredible population growth. However this apparent increase could have been an artifact of the much larger area represented in the 2002 survey – or "many other factors unrelated to overall elephant numbers" (From IUCN's African Elephant Status Report 2002, page 17 http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/aed/pdfs/aesr2002.pdf) The papers presented in Pachyderm magazine (journal of the African Elephant, African Rhino and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups) through June 2006 do not give any indication of a recent boom in elephant population (http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/pachy/pachy40.html). A "comprehensive African Elephant Status Report (AESR) is … expected to be published some time in 2006" based on their current data. See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/aed/index.html ... Verifiable reliable peer-reviewed published scientific research by The World Conservation Union that has not yet been cited in the talk or the article. User:67.10.163.122|67.10.163.122]] 10:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Contrary to what is stated above, a formal statistical analysis of changes in elephant numbers, using only comparable survey data, was published in Pachyderm 38 (p.19-28). The analysis concluded that the elephant population in Southern Africa (which currently holds the largest regional population) and perhaps also in Eastern Africa, have been increasing considerably in recent years, at about 4.5% per annum for both regions combined. Nowhere near as fast as suggested by Colbert, admittedly, but at pretty high overall rates nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly though, the estimates that now remain on the Wikipedia elephant page (3,000,000 in 1970, 300,000 today) are as inaccurate and fictitious as those suggested by Colbert. There are believed to be about half a million African elephants today (give or take 100,000 or so). We do not know, and cannot reliably estimate, the figures in the 1970s; the first widely publicised continental estimate, 1.3 million in 1979, was made by Iain Douglas Hamilton in The African Elephant Action Plan (IUCN/WWF/NYZS - unpublished). The whole irony of the Colbert story, is that the widely publicised decline in elephant numbers between the late 1970s and the early 1990s came to be widely accepted through a very similar process of sheer repetition. The Douglas-Hamilton estimate included a very large proportion of guesses - extrapolations of assumed elephant densities over vast areas of assumed range. Such guesses, which made up over half of the continental estimate, were removed from subsequent continental estimates due to their lack of basis and unreliability. Many erroneously interpreted this as sign of substantial declines in overall elephant numbers. Numbers have undoubtedly declined drastically in many areas through poaching and habitat loss, but at the same time elephant numbers have been increasing in others - particularly in Southern Africa, where populations have been recovering after reaching their lowest point about 100 years ago. We simply do not the extent to which declines in some areas may have been offset by increases in others, and hence remain ignorant of the shape of the net trend at the continental level in the last 30 years or so. --Pitix 12:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

 * If you visit this article from American University, you will see that the actual population has increased in many African countries, such as Botswana, which is currently experiencing severe elephant overpopulation. While the population may have not tripled over the past ten years, it certainly has increased. Anyone who reverts my edits, which are actually backed by respectable sources, while yours are not, will be warned for vandalism. Cielomobile 18:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The actual Elephants page states worldwide figures of both 300,000 and 600,000 African elephants. Which is it? Adversive 17:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

In regards to poaching and illegal hunting
See this sentence:
 * One decade later, only around 600,000 remain. This decline is attributed primarily to poaching, or illegal hunting, and habitat loss.

Is there a difference between poaching and illegal hunting? Aren't those the same thing? If the intent of "or illegal hunting" was to provide a definition of poaching, isn't the fact that poaching is wikilinked enough to warrant the removal of the definition? --Stephane Charette 09:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Since it's conceivable that even native English speakers who are not familiar with hunting will be unsure what poaching is, it's a perfectly valid way to put it. The fact that something is linked doesn't mean that there should be absolutely no information about it included in the text. Zocky | picture popups 11:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not simple.wikipedia.org. Poaching is not a technical, or "hard," word, especially in a page about wildlife, or animals in nature, and I find the clause, or words separated by commas, somewhat insulting, or hurting to my feelings.  Those who don't understand it can click, and those that do will find this clumsy and unnecessary. NTK 13:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

and talk about elephants, but isn't there a glaring discrepancy between the introduction and the first section?

Introduction: "Elephants are increasingly threatened by human intrusion, with the African elephant population plummeting from 3 million in 1970 to roughly 300,000 today..."

Zoology, African Elephant: "Today there are approximately 600,000 African elephants in the world."

Or have they been breeding like rabbits?

Straussian 13:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The rampant vandalism regarding elephant population probably threw off editors a bit. I suggest looking back at the history of the Elephant article pre-Colbert-vandalism to see what the actual numbers were.  Better yet, look it up in a proper source. —   Da rk Sh ik ar i   talk /contribs  14:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It would appear to be an estimate of 300,000 to 600,000 according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) "There are 300,000 to 600,000 African (in 37 range countries) and 35,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants (in 13 range countries) left in the wild."

CNN list the Population at 580,000 in 1998 Sirex98 16:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Check the African Elephant Database for the official (and most detailed) figures: the most recent data (2002) indicate a continental population of between 400,000 and 660,000. The figures now shown on the elephant page (3,000,000 million in 1970 and 300,000 today have NOT been taken from WWF as cited in the article, but from the Daphne Sheldrick Wildife Trus - an organization concerned with animal welfare lobby and not an authority on elephant population numbers. The WWF page cited gives figures of 1.3 million (not 3 million) in 1970 and 600,000 in 1989 (nothing for today). Somebody please correct the figures - else this is just as fictitious as the figures of the Colbert debacle. --Pitix 11:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I removed the following unreferenced and inconsistent population numbers from the article. Obviously, properly referenced recent estimates should be added by someone familiar with the authorities on this topic.

 * ..., to 272,000 in 2000 and then to between 400,000 and 660,000 in 2003

 * Elroch 18:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk page archived
I have ruthlessly removed anything to do with the Colbert Report to /Colbert. I thought the segment was funny as hell, and good publicity for us, but this talk page should be about elephants again. I will continue to ruthlessly archive in this manner. -- SCZenz 17:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Alright, so long as we haven't just created a Colbert chat room/messageboard. I'd support simply declaring it an archive, locking the page, and diverting any other comments about the matter to the talk pages of individual users.  (But my, does this place look a lot cleaner.)  Either way, it's a positive step.  JDoorj a m     Talk 17:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * None of us have to read that page, so it's a lot more pleasant having comments there (since people will comment somewhere). After a week or so, hopefully, it will effectively be an archive.  I'll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't become a chat room in any case. -- SCZenz 17:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Penis Section
I just indented this section to prevent it from showing up as a category. To be honest, it seems like a load of nonsense, but I'm not a biologist and I don't want to remove it without feedback from others. Anyone? alpha Chimp laudare 20:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've removed the section. It was entirely unsourced, and seems simply to be in response to Thursday's Colberrorism.  Elephants are large.  As large animals, they have large animal parts.  I'll bet they have gigantic kidneys and monstrously large livers, too.  They've got big feet and long tongues.  And yes, the males have large penises (which, incidentally, is the plural -- that, or penes).  All of the other elephant body part sections deal with unique or unusual aspects of the elephant, not issues related directly to the size of the creature: tusks, skin, ears, trunk.  We don't need one on the penis.  JDoorj a m     Talk 20:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

You may want to check these references  Sysrpl 20:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Penis already has a discussion of elephant penises, and has for a long time—I suspect it's why Colbert brought them up, actually. I really think that it's more relevant there than here. -- SCZenz 20:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I concur. JDoorj a m    Talk 21:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yup. Just zis Guy you know? 21:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now this seems to be going a wee bit overboard. We're claiming the the actual, factual physiology of an animal is not worth mentioning in its own article because of a potential giggle factor and/or mention on a comedy show? Tell me we haven't reached this point. I remember, many years ago (1993, before the internet invented itself), having an extended conversation about the size of wangs in the animal kingdom (I had a fun HS english teacher, what can I say), the... um... generous size of the pachyderm's pecker actually did come up. I vividly remember because some girl blurted out "that's taller than I am" --one remembers these things over chemistry equations (go figure). Anyway, let's not be dreadfully serious, this is Wikipedia, not Britannica (and I say that in the best way possible). --Bobak 00:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It is neither a critical fact about the elephant, nor a fact that I believe our readers who type "elephant" into the search box are looking for. It is not more notable than the elephant's spleen size, which we do not go into detail on either.  If you think the difference between Wikipedia and Britannica is that we focus on factoids to make girls giggle, you've got the wrong encyclopedia.
 * As I said above, the information in question is in penis; I imagine someone looking up that subject is much more likely to be interested. -- SCZenz 08:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I haven't been following this debate, but what about a "see also" link directly to the elephant section on the penis article? Seems like a nice compromise to me. Konman72 08:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've heard no argument that merits compromise. If you would like to present one, I'm happy to discuss. -- SCZenz 08:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nope, got no opinion either way. Just thought I'd try to help. Konman72 08:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that; striving for compromise is a good thing in general. But I think compromises really only make sense if all parties are arguing based on the goals and policies of Wikipedia.  It doesn't seem to me the pro-penis (heh) arguments above fit that description. -- SCZenz 08:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Elephants have the largest penises of land mammals. How is that not notable?  I mean, we have an article on John Holmes and Dirk Diggler, and I didn't even need to check ahead to see if they were there.  Does the article about blue whales say they are the largest mammals?  Does the article about hummingbids say they are the smallest birds and flap their wings the fastest of birds?  There's a reason why some think an elephant article shouldn't include its breadbasket, and it's Victorian-era puritanism: bleeding into the "serious" editors saying a penis has no place in an article about an animal that has one.  That has nothing to do with what is "right" for an encyclopedia, it has everything to do with "well, we don't want to offend people".  Get real. --Bobak 19:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * They are large animals. Everything about them is large.  We don't need to add peniscruft to reinforce this rather obvious fact. Just zis Guy you know? 20:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I'd be more supportive of this if they had extremely tiny penises, or four of them, or they shot flames or something.  As it is it's just not unusual enough to merit its own section.  I would tolerate a single referenced sentence or half-sentence near the beginning stating that their various organs are also all correspondingly above average if people really think that's not an obvious foregone conclusion that big animals have big animal parts, but I'm not sure even that is necessary. JDoorj a m     Talk 20:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Pssshh... by your exacting standards no penis would be worthy. (this is starting to read like a bad episode of Sex is the City... Nerds in the City Online?) Frankly, I don't know anyone, outside of the over-serious world of Wikipedia who wasn't amused by the revelation of pachyderm penis size.  We're not prudes. --Bobak 23:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

IMHO comparative anatomy is useful and interesting information, having a table of median brain, spleen, heart, femur, other bones and organs, and (even) penis sizes for some major or representative species might be a "good thing"(tm) if it was semi-systematic and not overdone; representative, major, and interesting parts (we don't need "median weight of 3rd lumbar vertebra" just yet). Wikipedia's really not a datadump, of course, but comparative anatamy is important and one way to illustrate it is with the actual sizes of things. And of course, if we're talking about comparisons among species, we would need to include the endpoints of the range.... I'll shut up now... Bye... --studerby 20:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC) This sounds silly. Of course elephant anatomy and phisiology should be discuseed in the article about elephants. The penis article should include comparative anatomy of penises, not details about individual species. Zocky | picture popups 12:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The size of the penis is actually more informative than the size of other organs. Most organs are simply scaled up or down according to the size of the animal, and for these we should not bother to mention. Some organs are changed depending on physiology or social changes, and these should be mentioned. The length of the gut in a number of animals that digest otherwise undigestable foods, the size of the liver in animals that are able to cope with high concentrations of posion. And the size of the penis is used as one of the measures of male-male competition for reproductive success. In species with a single dominant male (such as gorillas) the penis size is small, while in species with a more complex social structure where females may have sex with numerous males (such as chimpanzee) the pensis size is relatively larger. This is therefore included in the article not for giggles, but as highly relevent information on the anatomy of the animal which gives us an insight into social structure. Sad mouse 20:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's hardly the question of size. Animals differ not just in how they look externally, but primarily in how their organs work. Elephant's penis, just as its hart, lungs, bladder, etc. has peculiar properties which should be described in the article about elephants. Zocky | picture popups 15:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Gorillas have really small penis's, they are large; so not all big animals have corrosponding parts. Just a thought, I support the link elsewhere compromise. I think that it is validated by the fact that someone is interested in elephant penises, this being a public encyclopedia, they should have a voice no matter how silly they may seem. By the way, you seem to have more Colbert issues. Thats what I actually entered this discussion page about.

 * Penis section / references have gone in article as I write this. Info on elephant penile size would be noteworthy if such size was SIGNIFICANTLY more or less than what a scientist might expect it to be from body mass. Like many animals, elephant penises (and whale penises for that matter)are not readily visible until tumescence. Human males have the most obviously visible genitalia, a consequence of their bipedalism and their lack of fur. Only video I saw of male elephant in coital activity certainly opened my eyes, and lowered my jaw. Btw, interesting that earlier comments mention elephant's kidneys. In fact these glands possess very revealing, perhaps unique characteristics in elephants, namely they are similar to those of amphibious mammals, giving important clues to the elephant's genesis. I do not think the article should be much expanded, but some further evolutionary material on this matter could well be incorporated. Myles325a 10:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

 * The one way it is noteworthy is that, compared to body size, it's quite large. To scale up the average man to have a penis the size of an elephant's, he would have to be far larger than any elephant is or ever has been. Even so, saying where every penis-possessing animal lies on the relative scale might seem pointless. I don't know if they have the largest relative to body size of all mammals, or vertebrates, but they certainly do not of all animals - that's barnacles. Perhaps a more worthwhile comment is that the length is far less typical of body size than is the girth, or that the extreme length is one of the main difficulties in collecting elephant semen for conservation programs. Another non-trivial aspect of it is that Richard Dawkins admitted (I forget in which book) that, when he was a young researcher, he and his colleagues discussed how to compute the length of an elephant's penis by analysing its urine tracks, and were thoroughly amused. So, whether or not this section was trivial before, it need not be. I honestly don't know if it was, as I didn't read it. Of course, these non-trivial facts might be inappropriate because Wikipedia is not for indiscriminate collections of information, but I think other people's opinions are relevant here. I don't know what should be included. Anyone? 85.92.173.186 10:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

So, how'd we do?
Check out before and after: how the Elephant article has changed since July 31. Do we have a better article as a result of all that traffic? Did we lose anything in the shuffle? --M @ r ē ino 15:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Overall it is much better. However, there is a major problem now: the article says 600,000 elephants are left, and then later says 300,000 are left.  This issue needs to be resolved quite quickly... or maybe the number of elephants has doubled in the past 6 days? —   Da rk Sh ik ar i   talk /contribs  16:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I changed "roughly 300,000 today" -> "to roughly 600,000 in 1989, down to 272,000 in 2000" -- that is what the references next to it say. I don't know what the current population is... BCorr | Брайен 16:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Nice work. I touched up the grammar in the second sentence, but other than that it looks great. Thanks! -Harmil 19:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The population references still need to be cleaned up. According to the article, the population of African elephants has doubled in the past 6 years.  The intro says there were 272,000 in 2000, while the next section says there are 600,000 today. 24.16.40.101 03:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Elephant Intelligence
With regard to this page, besides barring against any further acts of the aforementioned heinous wiki-crime, perhaps this page should have a section devoted to the purported intelligence of elephants, which seems in many ways to reflect the intelligence of other large mammals such as whales, dolphins, and primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas. The intelligence-type of parrots and crows does not seem to be as analogous, as it is more based on mimickry and a type of survivalist/strategic thought-pattern, although it is also noted. Matthew A.J.י.B. 01:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I was also surprised that there isn't such a section. That would definitely be a worthwhile addition. —   Da rk Sh ik ar i   talk /contribs  14:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The intelligence of parrots and crows may actually be more analogous than you think, since intelligence in mammals actually correlates far better with longevity than with size, both parrots are crows are quite long-lived by comparison to other birds, which indicates the analogy may hold up between birds and mammals. Sad mouse 20:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

While on the subject of elephant intelligence, it may also be good to discuss the belief that elephants have perfect memory, where it came from, and how close to the truth it is. -- Milo

an excellent article about elephant intelligence can be found at http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/elephant.htm

It is possible that being long lived and master of so complex an organ as the trunk has given rise to an animal closer in intelligence to humans than horses.

I have edited part of intelligence section as many studies tend to rank elephants about equal with cetaceans and apes and put them all in the same catagory.The duskydolphin 02:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Asian Elephant population error
The Elephant section states that there are "approximately 40,000" Asian Elephants total, comprised of "3,000-4,500" Sri Lankan Asian Elephants, "approximately 36,000" Mainland Asian Elephants and "33,000 to 53,000" Sumatran Asian Elephants. (Sidenote, I note the Asian Elephant article has no pop. figures at all) TeeEmCee 09:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Try checking the external links that the population figures are cited to, and then correcting the figures from there. Its quite possible the figures are from different dates: that was the problem with the conflicting African Elephant figures. —   Da rk Sh ik ar i   talk /contribs  09:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing sprotection
It's been two weeks now; I'm taking off the semi-protection. We'll probably still get pinged by a few people who thought it was OMG SO HILARIOUS, but it's time for us to move on. JDoorj a m    Talk 20:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Elephant/Archive 3


text:
Evolutionary linguistics

Evolutionary linguistics or Darwinian linguistics is a sociobiological approach to the study of language. Evolutionary linguists consider linguistics as a subfield of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The approach is also closely linked with evolutionary anthropology, cognitive linguistics and biolinguistics. Studying languages as the products of nature, it is interested in the biological origin and development of language. Evolutionary linguistics is contrasted with humanistic approaches, especially structural linguistics.

A main challenge in this research is the lack of empirical data: there are no archaeological traces of early human language. Computational biological modelling and clinical research with artificial languages have been employed to fill in gaps of knowledge. Although biology is understood to shape the brain, which processes language, there is no clear link between biology and specific human language structures or linguistic universals.

For lack of a breakthrough in the field, there have been numerous debates about what kind of natural phenomenon language might be. Some researchers focus on the innate aspects of language. It is suggested that grammar has emerged adaptationally from the human genome, bringing about a language instinct; or that it depends on a single mutation which has caused a language organ to appear in the human brain. This is hypothesized to result in a crystalline grammatical structure underlying all human languages. Others suggest language is not crystallized, but fluid and ever-changing. Others, yet, liken languages to living organisms. Languages are considered analogous to a parasite or populations of mind-viruses. There is so far little scientific evidence for any of these claims, and some of them have been labelled as pseudoscience.

1863–1945: social Darwinism
Although pre-Darwinian theorists had compared languages to living organisms as a metaphor, the comparison was first taken literally in 1863 by the historical linguist August Schleicher who was inspired by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. At the time there was not enough evidence to prove that Darwin's theory of natural selection was correct. Schleicher proposed that linguistics could be used as a testing ground for the study of the evolution of species. A review of Schleicher's book Darwinism as Tested by the Science of Language appeared in the first issue of Nature journal in 1870. Darwin reiterated Schleicher's proposition in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, claiming that languages are comparable to species, and that language change occurs through natural selection as words 'struggle for life'. Darwin believed that languages had evolved from animal mating calls. Darwinists considered the concept of language creation as unscientific.

August Schleicher and his friend Ernst Haeckel were keen gardeners and regarded the study of cultures as a type of botany, with different species competing for the same living space. Similar ideas became later advocated by politicians who wanted to appeal to working class voters, not least by the national socialists who subsequently included the concept of struggle for living space in their agenda. Highly influential until the end of World War II, social Darwinism was eventually banished from human sciences, leading to a strict separation of natural and sociocultural studies.

This gave rise to the dominance of structural linguistics in Europe. There had long been a dispute between the Darwinists and the French intellectuals with the topic of language evolution famously having been banned by the Paris Linguistic Society as early as in 1866. Ferdinand de Saussure proposed structuralism to replace evolutionary linguistics in his Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916. The structuralists rose to academic political power in human and social sciences in the aftermath of the student revolts of Spring 1968, establishing Sorbonne as an international centrepoint of humanistic thinking.

From 1959 onwards: genetic determinism
In the United States, structuralism was however fended off by the advocates of behavioural psychology; a linguistics framework nicknamed as 'American structuralism'. It was eventually replaced by the approach of Noam Chomsky who published a modification of Louis Hjelmslev's formal structuralist theory, claiming that syntactic structures are innate. An active figure in peace demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, Chomsky rose to academic political power following Spring 1968 at the MIT.

Chomsky became an influential opponent of the French intellectuals during the following decades, and his supporters successfully confronted the post-structuralists in the Science Wars of the late 1990s. The shift of the century saw a new academic funding policy where interdisciplinary research became favoured, effectively directing research funds to biological humanities. The decline of structuralism was evident by 2015 with Sorbonne having lost its former spirit.

Chomsky eventually claimed that syntactic structures are caused by a random mutation in the human genome, proposing a similar explanation for other human faculties such as ethics. But Steven Pinker argued in 1990 that they are the outcome of evolutionary adaptations.

From 1976 onwards: Neo-Darwinism
At the same time when the Chomskyan paradigm of biological determinism defeated humanism, it was losing its own clout within sociobiology. It was reported likewise in 2015 that generative grammar was under fire in applied linguistics and in the process of being replaced with usage-based linguistics; a derivative of Richard Dawkins's memetics. It is a concept of linguistic units as replicators. Following the publication of memetics in Dawkins's 1976 nonfiction bestseller The Selfish Gene, many biologically inclined linguists, frustrated with the lack of evidence for Chomsky's Universal Grammar, grouped under different brands including a framework called Cognitive Linguistics (with capitalised initials), and 'functional' (adaptational) linguistics (not to be confused with functional linguistics) to confront both Chomsky and the humanists. The replicator approach is today dominant in evolutionary linguistics, applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology; while the generative approach has maintained its position in general linguistics, especially syntax; and in computational linguistics.

View of linguistics
Evolutionary linguistics is part of a wider framework of Universal Darwinism. In this view, linguistics is seen as an ecological environment for research traditions struggling for the same resources. According to David Hull, these traditions correspond to species in biology. Relationships between research traditions can be symbiotic, competitive or parasitic. An adaptation of Hull's theory in linguistics is proposed by William Croft. He argues that the Darwinian method is more advantageous than linguistic models based on physics, structuralist sociology, or hermeneutics.

Approaches
Evolutionary linguistics is often divided into functionalism and formalism, concepts which are not to be confused with functionalism and formalism in the humanistic reference. Functional evolutionary linguistics considers languages as adaptations to human mind. The formalist view regards them as crystallised or non-adaptational.

Functionalism (adaptationism)
The adaptational view of language is advocated by various frameworks of cognitive and evolutionary linguistics, with the terms 'functionalism' and 'Cognitive Linguistics' often being equated. It is hypothesised that the evolution of the animal brain provides humans with a mechanism of abstract reasoning which is a 'metaphorical' version of image-based reasoning. Language is not considered as a separate area of cognition, but as coinciding with general cognitive capacities, such as perception, attention, motor skills, and spatial and visual processing. It is argued to function according to the same principles as these.

It is thought that the brain links action schemes to form–meaning pairs which are called constructions. Cognitive linguistic approaches to syntax are called cognitive and construction grammar. Also deriving from memetics and other cultural replicator theories, these can study the natural or social selection and adaptation of linguistic units. Adaptational models reject a formal systemic view of language and consider language as a population of linguistic units.

The bad reputation of social Darwinism and memetics has been discussed in the literature, and recommendations for new terminology have been given. What correspond to replicators or mind-viruses in memetics are called linguemes in Croft's theory of Utterance Selection (TUS), and likewise linguemes or constructions in construction grammar and usage-based linguistics; and metaphors, frames or schemas in cognitive and construction grammar. The reference of memetics has been largely replaced with that of a Complex Adaptive System. In current linguistics, this term covers a wide range of evolutionary notions while maintaining the Neo-Darwinian concepts of replication and replicator population.

Functional evolutionary linguistics is not to be confused with functional humanistic linguistics.

Formalism (structuralism)
Advocates of formal evolutionary explanation in linguistics argue that linguistic structures are crystallised. Inspired by 19th century advances in crystallography, Schleicher argued that different types of languages are like plants, animals and crystals. The idea of linguistic structures as frozen drops was revived in tagmemics, an approach to linguistics with the goal to uncover divine symmetries underlying all languages, as if caused by the Creation.

In modern biolinguistics, the X-bar tree is argued to be like natural systems such as ferromagnetic droplets and botanic forms. Generative grammar considers syntactic structures similar to snowflakes. It is hypothesised that such patterns are caused by a mutation in humans.

The formal–structural evolutionary aspect of linguistics is not to be confused with structural linguistics.

Evidence
There was some hope of a breakthrough at the discovery of the FOXP2 gene. There is little support, however, for the idea that FOXP2 is 'the grammar gene' or that it had much to do with the relatively recent emergence of syntactical speech. There is no evidence that people have a language instinct. Memetics is widely discredited as pseudoscience and neurological claims made by evolutionary cognitive linguists have been likened to pseudoscience. All in all, there does not appear to be any evidence for the basic tenets of evolutionary linguistics beyond the fact that language is processed by the brain, and brain structures are shaped by genes.

Criticism
Evolutionary linguistics has been criticised by advocates of (humanistic) structural and functional linguistics. Ferdinand de Saussure commented on 19th century evolutionary linguistics: "'Language was considered a specific sphere, a fourth natural kingdom; this led to methods of reasoning which would have caused astonishment in other sciences. Today one cannot read a dozen lines written at that time without being struck by absurdities of reasoning and by the terminology used to justify these absurdities”"

Mark Aronoff, however, argues that historical linguistics had its golden age during the time of Schleicher and his supporters, enjoying a place among the hard sciences, and considers the return of Darwinian linguistics as a positive development. Esa Itkonen nonetheless deems the revival of Darwinism as a hopeless enterprise: "'There is ... an application of intelligence in linguistic change which is absent in biological evolution; and this suffices to make the two domains totally disanalogous ... [Grammaticalisation depends on] cognitive processes, ultimately serving the goal of problem solving, which intelligent entities like humans must perform all the time, but which biological entities like genes cannot perform. Trying to eliminate this basic difference leads to confusion.”"

Itkonen also points out that the principles of natural selection are not applicable because language innovation and acceptance have the same source which is the speech community. In biological evolution, mutation and selection have different sources. This makes it possible for people to change their languages, but not their genotype.

title: Evolutionary linguistics