Talk:North African elephant

A capital idea

When did these things become proper nouns? And since when does WP dictate correct Eng usage? TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 09:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Splitters and Lumpers

Some of these ideas are from spliters. They will see different species in different haircolour amongst siblings. Lumpers will decide nothing is wrong with lumping species, genera an even orders together. Autochthony spoke - a little confusedly - 2145z 29 December 2009. 86.151.60.238 (talk) 21:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I would say lumpers are often worse. We almost lost the African Forest Elephant due to themTheDarkMaster2 (talk) 23:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

No IUCN data

The IUCN Red List is quoted but I cannot find any info about the Loxodonta africana pharaoensis subspecies on the list. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Scientific name?

Is the name "Loxodonta africana pharaoensis" used by any reliable sources? Who coined it? Seems a little suspicious... FunkMonk (talk) 10:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

In Google Scholar there is only two results and neither of them cites the author of name. I'm afraid that the name is a widespread hoax.--Rextron (talk) 02:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Loxodonta africana pharaohensis Deraniyagala, 1948 type locality: Ptolemais Thermon on Red Sea coast of Ethiopia. Extinct; berbericus Seurat and hannibaldi Deraniyagala are synonyms. Ref: Laursen & Bekoff 1978 Mammalian Species. Burmeister (talk) 14:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice, all that info should be added. FunkMonk (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I regret what I said above. If Deraniyagala is the author, probably the original publication where the name was coined must be it: Some Scientific Results of Two Visits to Africa, 1948, Spolia Zeylanica, Volume 25, Part 2. About the name P. a. berbericus, was used originally by Joleaud L., « Sur l’âge de l’Elephas africanus en Numidie », Rec. des Not. et Mém. de la Soc. Archéol. de Constantine, t. XLVIII, 1914, p. 203-210. although as Elephas africanus berbericus, without a scientific description. But I can not find anything about Seurat (could be Leon Gaston Seurat, but I don't find any publication of him in 1930).--Rextron (talk) 19:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Consider deletion or major revision?

Based on Charles, Michael B. "AFRICAN FOREST ELEPHANTS AND TURRETS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD." Phoenix 62, no. 3/4 (2008): 338-62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25651736. This elephant is believed to be Loxodonta cyclotis (the African forest elephant) who did not go extinct but simply had it range drastically reduced by over hunting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 54littleflowers (talk • contribs) 16:22, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

This seems far more likely. The mosaic shown on this very page depicts the smaller tusks and rounder head of L. cyclotis (the extant but rarely seen African forest elephant), overall looking far more like that animal than the bush elephant (L. africana). Also fitting into this is that Polybius describes them as being so much smaller than the Asian elephant (E. maximus) as to have notably impaired their warfare effectiveness - that would be an incredible shrinkage for L. africana, but does accurately describe L. cyclotis.

Presumably the only reason it's been (tenuously) classified as an extinct subspecies of L. africana is that L. cyclotis is quite poorly understood, and has itself been lumped into L. africana until recently. Moonlit Dinner with a Randy Moose (talk) 21:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)