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Whether savannah and forest-dwelling African elephants belong to the same or different species has long been the subject of debate. An analysis of the creatures' genetic ancestry confirms that the two species are separate.
Nadin Rohland at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and her co-workers sequenced the nuclear genomes of the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the savannah one (L. africana), as well as that of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). They also extracted and sequenced DNA from the extinct woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and American mastodon (Mammut americanum) — ancient ancestors of today's elephants. By comparing all of these genomes, the team found that the forest and savannah elephants diverged into separate species between 7.1 million and 1.9 million years ago — much earlier than previously proposed.
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For more on this research, see http://go.nature.com/91a4zy
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How one elephant became two. Nature 469, 269 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/469269e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/469269e
