Only two kinds of elephant? Sorry, there are three!

AS everyone knows, there are two species of elephant – the Asian and the African.

Unfortunately, it turns out that everyone was wrong, scientists announced yesterday.

DNA testing has revealed that there are two species of African elephant, the Forest and the Savannah, which have remained genetically isolated.

They split from each other two to five million years ago, and their genes have not mingled for more than 500,000 years.

It provides ‘compelling evidence for their definition as separate species’, researchers said.

Savannah elephants weigh six to seven tons and are paler than Forest elephants, which tip the scales at half that weight.

Professor David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, said: ‘There’s been a simmering debate about whether African Savannah and Forest elephants are two different species.

‘Our data show these two species have been isolated for long periods, making each worthy of independent conservation status.’

Scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Adelaide University used genetic tests on living elephants and tissue from extinct mammoths and mastodons, in effect creating a family tree for elephants and their ancestors.

Writing in the Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, they said there was ‘no evidence of recent gene flow between Forest and Savannah elephants’.

They found that many extinct species interbred, delaying the extinction of their gene pool. But the fact that the two species of African elephant don’t, could make them harder to protect. The researchers said around 50,000 elephants are killed each year from poaching, putting many populations in danger.

The findings will mean school textbooks claiming there are only two types of elephant will need to be rewritten.