The Elephant we could see today in the zoo and in their natural habitat belong to a family known as Elephantidae. This family is further divided into two genus. The first genus is Loxodonta which consist of two African elephant species. The second genus is Elephas which only have one living species under it, the Asian Elephant.

image taken from www.sanparks.com

In prehistoric time, there were various kind of elephant. Some extinct members of elephant family are significantly different from elephants we see today, albeit they still share the same body plan. The most obvious difference usually lies in the shape of their tusks, the number of their tusks, the shape of the back and the length of their trunks.

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta Africana)

Conservation Status : Near Threatened

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African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the largest among species of elephant still available today. Adult animal could grow up to 6-7.3 meters in length and 3-3.5 meters in height. The males are usually bigger than the females. The record holder African elephant is could stand up to 4.2 meters and weigh more than 12 tons.

Image taken from www.nigeldennis.com

African Bush Elephants are herbivorous and usually need more than 200 kilograms of plant matter daily. Elephants living in different area may have different kind of diet. Some elephant tribe living near Lake Kariba was reported to base their diet on underwater plant. Usually the food are defecated without fully digested. As such, the feces contain enough nutrition to act as the media for the seeds of the plant eaten by the elephant to germinate. Elephant have a great role in their ecosystem to spread plant seeds and provide fertilizer for those seeds.

African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta Cyclotis)

Status: Near Threathened

Image taken from www.cryptozoology.ru

Until DNA testing proved otherwise African Forest Elephant was considered as a subspecies of African Bush Elephant. However African Elephant Specialist Group from IUCN and other authorities still consider that the evidence for splitting the species was not enough.

The first physiological difference lies in the rounded ear of African Forest Elephant as opposed to more pointed shape of African Bush Elephant. The other physiological difference lies in the shape of their inferior maxilliary bone. The inferior maxiliary bones of African Forest Elephants are long and narrow, while those of African Bush Elephant are short and wide. African Forest Elephants are also smaller than African Bush Elephant. The males rarely exceed 2.5 meters in height while African Bush Elephants could easily grow exceeding 3 meters in height.

Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus)

Status : Endangered

Image taken from www.susty.com

Asian elephants could be distinguished from their African cousins by the size of their ears. The ears of Asian Elephants are smaller than their African counterparts. Asian elephants tends to grow up to 2-4 meters in height and 3-5 tonnes in mass. The back of Asian Elephant is more arched than the African and the number of prehensile “finger” at the tip of its trunk is only one.

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Asian Elephants formed a close relationship with human near their habitat. According to historical account Asian Elephants had been domesticated since the age of Harappan. The Asian Indian god Ganesha have the form of half-human and half-elephant. Since their domestication, Asian elephants had been used for various purpose such as siege engine for wars, mobile hunting platforms for hunters, carrying heavy objects around and a symbol of status for their owner.

Albino Asian Elephants also known as white elephants are considered sacred animals in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.They are kept by monarch in those area and possession of them are considered a sign that the kingdom is blessed. Because of their sacred status, white elephants may not be put into labor. Receiving a white elephants from a monarch could be considered as a blessing and a curse happening in the same time. It is a blessing because it elevate the status of its owner but it is also a curse because the animal cost something to maintain and may not be used for practical purpose.

Sicilian Dwarf Elephants (Elephas Falconeri)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.scientific-web.com

The Drawf Sicilian Elephant is the smallest elephant ever existed on Earth. These elephants can only grow up to 90 cm in height and weigh at most 200 kilograms. Very small and light for an elephant. These elephants live in Sicilian islands during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs (1.800.000 – 4.500 years ago). Scientist theorize that the evolution of these elephants were caused by lack of competition for food, lack of predators and the small size of their habitat.

This is an evidence of something zoologist termed “Island Rule”. This Rule stated that mammals living in small islands tend to evolve to be significantly smaller than their counterparts living in greater continental land masses. This is because lack of predators remove the survival advantage of having large bodies. Growing up to a large size require lots of time and resources. Without the existence of predators, the time, effort and resources required to acquire bigger mass could be used to produce more offspring.

Straight Tusked Elephant (Elephas antiquus)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.paleoroma.com

As the name suggest, Straight-tusked Elephant have less curved tusk than most elephant family have. Straight-tusked elephants are closely related to Asian Elephan, thus they belong to the genus Elephas. Most elephant that belong to genus Elephas and already extinct sometimes also called as Palaeoloxodon (ancient elephant).

Straight-tusked Elephant live in Europe during the Middle and Late Pleistocene Epoch. At those time the foliage could grow up about 8 meters in height. It was suggested that this creature have 80cm long tongue that could be projected to browse those foliage.

Most fossil remain found are isolated tusks, while whole and partial skeleton are very rare. Among some of the fossil remains, flint tools also found scattered around. This is an evidence that said elephant was hunted by some of our prehistoric ancestors. A skeleton found in Germany was found with the remain of spear between the ribs, which also confirm the truth in the hypothesis.

Imperial Mammoth (Mammuthus imperator)

Status: Extinct

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Imperial Mammoth was the largest known species of elephant. Adult Imperial Mammoth could reach a height of 4.9 meters, higher than the record holder African Bush Elephant. These creatures lived in area between Canada and New Mexico between 4,600,000 and 17,000 years ago.

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The tusks of Imperial Mammoth are 4.3 meters long and curved to the point of overlap. They live in relatively warm region and were not furred with dense hair. Mammoths are more like the cousins of both Asian and African elephants than their ancestors. Mammoths, Asian and African elephant diverge from a common ancestor that live around late Miocene and early Pliocene. Mammoths have closer relationship with Asian elephants than they do to African Elephants.

Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.damisela.com

Woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth living in tundra region spanning from northern North America and northern Eurasia. Because of the nature of their habitat, sometimes unlucky mammoths are trapped inside the ice and have their bodied preserved for thousands of years. Unlucky for the mammoths but it is really a blessing for the palaeontologists who found the well preserved carcasses in Siberia.

From a whole preserved fossil palaeontologist could study their diet, internal anatomy and colors. Something hard if not impossible to do if we could only find skeletal remains. Forensics teams could also learn how the unfortunate mammoth died.

The anatomy of woolly mammoths are adapted for living in the cold environment. They have a thick layer of 1 meter long shaggy hair plus a find underwool. This underwool is where the Woolly Mammoth name come from. Their ears are also smaller than modern elephants with the largest only 30 cm long. The ear of an African Elephant in contrast, could reach up to 180 cm. One of the function of elephant ears is to remove heat from its body. This is why Woolly Mammoth living in tundra region have smaller ears than their extant cousins living in the hot African Savannah region.

Primelephas (Primelephas gomphotheroides)

Status : Extinct

image taken from www.elephant.se

Primelephas is a genus of elephant living during Pliocene epoch. Unlike modern elephants, Primelephas have two pairs of tusk. The first pair is bigger and located in the upper jaw. The second pair is smaller and located in the lower jaw. These genus later splits into three different lineage, African Elephant (Loxodonta sp.), Asian Elephant (Elephas sp.) and Mammoth (Mammuthus sp.).

Anancus (Anancus arvernensis)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.fossil-museum.netfirms.com

Anancus is a far cousins of modern elephant as it doesn’t share the same lineage from Primelephas. This animal lived during the late Miocene and early Pleistocene in Africa, Europe and Asia.

The strange thing is the fact that although Anancus is less related to modern elephant than Primelephas, Anancus resemble modern elephant more than Primelephas. For example Anancus have one pair of tusks while Primelephas have two pairs of tusks. The common ancestor of Primelephas and Anancus, the Gomphoterium also have four pairs of tusks.

Anancus could grow up to 3 meters tall. Their tusks could grow up to 4 meters in length, a lot longer than the tusks of modern elephants. It was thought that the function of these tusks are for self-defense purpose. The ears of Anancus is the smallest among all Proboscidea.

Stegodon (Stegodon ganesha)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.elephant.se

Stegodon is the cousin of Mastodon, Anancus and every probiscidean on the lineage of Primeelephas. This animal is famous for the fact that some of species of this genus experience dwarfing as a result of prolonged living in small islands. A member of this genus Stegodon florensis for example, is a small elephant inhabiting Flores island, Indonesia during the same period of time with Homo floresiensis. Both Stegodon florensis and Homo floresiensis have overall size smaller than the normal size of elephant and human respectively. We could imagine the island of Flores being a haven for small creatures.

Stegodon has its origin in the continental Asia during late Miocene epoch. Throughout the Pleistocene epoch, they coexist with the Asian Elephant in Southern China. Although they are famous for the dwarfing effect in islands, some of Stegodon species were among the largest Probocidea. Adult could grow up to 3.9 meters in height and 7.8 meters in length. The tusks are nearly straight and could measure up to 3 meters in length. Some individuals have to drap their trunk over their tusks because the tusks were so close together. The youngest fossil found by anthropologist suggest that Stegodon still alive 2000 years before christ.

Mastodon (Mammut americanum)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.museum.state.il.us

Most people seems to believe that Mastodon and Mammoth are the same. Sometimes Mastodon are called as Mammut and due to the homonym, this name is often confused with that of Mammoth. Most recent research however, suggest that this animal lineage is as far away from Mammoth as Stegodon are. The Mammoth, Stegodon and Primelephas (the ancestor of Mammoth) are diverged from an older genus of Proboscidea called Gomphotherium.

Like Woolly Mammoth, the body of Mastodon is covered with long shaggy hair. The tusk are bent up, but not as extreme as in the case of Woolly Mammoth. 

Gomphotherium (Gomphotherium angustidens)

Status: Extinct

image taken from www.fossil-treasures-of-florida.com

Gomphotheriums are the ancestors of both Anancus, Stegodon, Mastodon and Primelephas. This creature live between Miocene and Pleistocene epoch. Their fossils have been found in Austria, France, Germany, Kenya, Pakistan and USA.

Adult Gomphotherium could stood around 3 meters high. The tusks are short and the trunk is not yet evolved. The lower tusk is shovel-like in appearance and might be used as such. It is thought that these animals are adapted to life in lakes and swamps. The shovel-like tusks in the lower jaws are used for digging aquatic vegetation for food.