The Smallest Elephant - Borneo Pygmy

The Smallest Elephant - Borneo Pygmy

It is estimated that there were once more than 350 species of elephants in the world. Today we only have two of them left , the African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) . Even though both species belong  to the Eliphantidae family there are many physical differences between the two. One of the most obvious differences is the ears. African elephants have huge, flappy ears while Asian elephants have smaller ones. But today we introduce you to yet another member of the elephant family which is in fact believed to be a subspecies of the Asian elephant - the pygmy elephant of Borneo.

Pygmy elephants are cryptids reported to be living in both Africa and Asia. The African Pygmy Elephant (Loxodonta pumilio) is believed to be a tiny morph of the African forest elephants.  There are claims by Kani tribals dwelling in the rainforests of India that there are pygmy elephants in the Peppara forest range. They refer to them as ‘Kallana’. However, the existence of a pygmy variety in India has not been scientifically ascertained.  And the term pygmy elephant should not be confused with dwarf elephant, which is used for a number of extinct species of elephants that evolved their size due to island dwarfing. Surprisingly one dwarf elephant was spotted in Sri Lanka back in 2013. It is fully grown but is only 5 feet tall.

Once believed to be remnants of a domesticated herd given to the Sultan of Sulu in the 17th century, pygmy elephants were determined by WWF to be genetically different from other Asian elephants. DNA evidence proved these elephants were isolated about 300,000 years ago from their cousins on mainland Asia and Sumatra. Over time, they became smaller with relatively larger ears, longer tails and straighter tusks. Today, the pygmy elephants of Borneo, Malaysia and Indonesia are the smallest elephants in Asia. It is a small creature that breeds in the Asian region having a length of approximately 2.5 meters. The recent study has especially accumulated the number of such creatures being alive today are about fifteen hundred in numbers.

These elephants possess thick strong limbs and huge feet in order to balance their body. They have hairs on their thick body which generally protect them from cold. The major cause of survival in the forest land of this animal is their tusks that enable them to fulfill their thirst by digging, searching for roots, barks and various other sources as well. They always use their long trunk to eat and drink which generally assist them to live in the wild atmosphere.

The necessary feeds of Borneo Pygmy Elephants are plants due to which they are declared as herbivorous. For instance, their daily feed is about hundred and fifty kilo grams of plants that include flowers, grasses, palm leaves, bananas and various other green formations in plants.

It has been notified that the major enemies of Pygmy Elephants are humans predominantly, which has made them endangered species. These elephants are endangered because of their ivory tusks being sold by humans in terms of getting huge amount of money in return. This is the main reason of this animal getting vanished from the human eyes.

The most obvious threat to these elephants today are the habitat loss. They are being degraded and fragmented by the increasing human population. This has resulted in human elephant conflicts, which usually occurs when the elephants destroy or eat the crops. A large number of people as well as elephants are killed every year, because of this. The expansion of humans has interrupted the elephants’ migration routes, diminished their sources of food and of course has disturbed their habitat.

An interaction with the surroundings of such an animal has made it a little shy and immensely gentle in behavior especially. The particular behavior of this animal is that he/she knows swimming in the flowing river and he/she can easily pass through the difficult river barriers. The main cause of defense of such animals is that they use their feet for kicking and stomping. They also utilize their tusks warding off their enemies.

It is an alarming fact that these cute lovable animals, the real-life ‘Dumbos’ with their strong resemblance to the cartoon character, should one day end up like the mammoths which became extinct in the ice-age. Even though, the pygmy elephant is not included in the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Threatened Species which classifies about 40,000 species according to their risk of extinction.  Let’s hope that conservationists will take all the necessary measures to ensure their numbers grow from just a thousand to many more thousands in the years to come.