Sentences with phrase «savanna elephants»

Today experts recognize African savanna elephants, or Loxodonta africana, which are found in Eastern and Southern Africa, and African forest elephants, or Loxodonta cyclotis, which are found in Central and West Africa where poaching pressures are the most severe.

All told, they had DNA from 1001 savanna elephants and 349 forest elephants from 29 countries.

There, with help from Wasser and his colleagues in Seattle, geneticist Al Roca sequenced introns — vestigial sections of DNA from the nucleus that accumulate mutations quickly because they don't code for any physical traits — and confirmed that forest and savanna elephants diverged at least 2.6 million and probably more than 3 million years ago — long enough to render them separate species.

Taxonomists and field biologists had long wondered just how different Africa's two designated elephant subspecies — the familiar, widespread savanna elephants and the elusive forest elephants — actually were.

Not surprisingly, mitochondrial DNA from savanna elephants in Namibia's Caprivi Strip — a small region analogous to Oklahoma's panhandle — was more similar to mitochondrial DNA of elephants in Botswana and Zimbabwe, which border the Caprivi Strip.

It would be hard to confuse Africa's forest elephants and savanna elephants.

«In savanna elephants, the large males dominate the matings.

But this time, they analyzed large amounts of nuclear DNA sequences from one individual of each of the three existing elephant groups (Asian elephants, African forest elephants, and Africa savanna elephants), and from two elephant species that recently became extinct (a mammoth and a mastodon).

A new genetic analysis, however, finds that forest and savanna elephants are as different from each other as modern Asian elephants are from ancient mammoths.

They're also 1 meter shorter and weigh half as much as the savanna elephants, which range from South to East Africa.

Both studies concluded that forest and savanna elephants are separate species, but they did not sway all taxonomists, who felt that certain data suggested that some forest and savanna elephants shared a recent maternal ancestor.

And a subsequent study of the forest and savanna elephants» nuclear DNA showed that the two had diverged more than 3 million years ago.

Bar coding suggests, for instance, that savanna elephants and forest elephants belong to the same species, Loxodonta africana.

Using techniques pioneered by savanna elephant researchers, the couple learned to recognize individuals by characteristics such as tusk shape, gait and ear markings.

They are largely losing to ivory poachers, as attested by the latest available data on Africa's two species of elephant, both threatened: savanna elephant populations fell 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, and those of forest elephants plummeted by 62 percent between 2002 and 2011.

«Given the rapid depletion of both forest and savanna elephant numbers in the past century and the ongoing destruction of their habitats, the conservation implications of recognition and species - level management of these distinct taxa are considerable,» the authors write

In 2011 the savanna elephant hotspot began shifting northward, from southeastern Tanzania toward the Ruaha National Park and Rungwa Game Reserve in the country's center, gradually creeping northward toward Kenya.

Two seizures of savanna elephant ivory, in 2002 and 2007, came from Zambia, but the country was not represented in any of the samples after 2007.

Distinct from the African savanna elephant, the African forest elephant is slightly smaller than its better - known relative and is considered by many to be a separate species.

More than 85 percent of the savanna elephant ivory seized between 2006 and 2014 was traced to East Africa, mainly from the Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania and the Niassa Reserve in adjacent northern Mozambique.

Wasser's results suggest most savanna elephant tusks originate from Tanzania and Mozambique whereas most forest elephant tusks come from Gabon, the Republic of the Congo or the Central African Republic.

Many African herds are in serious danger: A recent survey of savanna elephant populations estimated that poachers killed 30,000 animals annually between 2007 and 2014, reducing the population to fewer than 400,000.

«While the IUCN continues to recognize only one species, such deep genetic divergence makes it very easy to distinguish forest from savanna elephant ivory,» said Georgiadis.

Not exact matches

Guests may be able to view Tuma and her new baby while onboard the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction at Animal Kingdom, a jungle trek that traverses areas of the African savanna to allow riders an up - close look at hippos, lions, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, baboons and more.

Kids help prepare some African savanna animals (lions, giraffes, and elephants) for their sleep with simple bedtime routines.

Unlike their grass - loving savanna cousins, forest elephants feed heavily on fruit, along with leaves and bark, following seasonal routes to harvest the richest pickings.

The geographic variation of specific DNA markers was then mapped separately for savanna and forest elephants, which appear to be two separate species.

They corroborate the previous nuclear DNA findings and show that savanna and forest elephants separated between 1.9 million and 6.7 million years ago.

If the report's conclusions are accepted by the African Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN), the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) may be split into two species: L. africana, for those living on the savanna, and L. cyclotis, for those in the forest.

Biologists have long recognized morphological differences between Africa's forest - dwelling elephants and those that inhabit the savanna.

It's a David versus Goliath kind of story, with an ecological twist: In African savannas (regions with both trees and grass), acacia - dwelling ants can repel voracious, tree - eating elephants, according to new research by published online September 2 in Current Biology.

Elephants that dwell in Africa's rain forests were shown to be a different species from those that roam the savanna.

The mutualistic relationship between the ants and the acacia, by mediating elephant damage, is a key influence on the amount of tree cover in the savanna.

Elephants have such an aversion to the ants that they will avoid eating the acacia, which helps prevent the woody savanna from becoming a grassland.

Forest elephants, which travel in smaller groups in dense foliage, are much harder to track and dart than their brazen savanna cousins.

But the forest elephants (orage area) of Central and West Africa are smaller than elephants on the savanna.

East Africa's elephants face few threats in their savanna home, aside from humans and lions.

Illustrated in ruddy, earth - toned illustrations, this collection of poems catalogs the animal residents of the African savanna, from the diminutive dung beetle to the massive elephant and titular wildebeest.

The spacious grasslands of the African savanna provide nourishment to over 500 species of animals such as lions, gazelles, zebras, and the world's largest land mammal, the African elephant.

«If you think of the African savanna as an analogy, you could say that both lions and elephants produce carbon dioxide, but they eat different things,» senior author Scott Saleska said in a press release.

The film premiers on Earth Day, and during its opening week (April 22 - 28), a portion of the proceeds from that week's ticket sales will be donated to the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund to ensure the future of lions, cheetahs, elephants, zebras, giraffes and a host of other animals in the vibrant African savanna.