Third elephant type in Africa?

17 September 2002, 08:14

LE270

The Washington Post for today (Sept. 16,2002) contains the following short article in its Science Notebook section, page A9.

Third Elephant Type?

A study involving DNA extracted from wild elephants' dung indicates that there are three--not two--distinct types of elephants in Africa

Lori S. Eggert of the Smithsonian Institution collected elephant dung samples while working as a doctoral student with David S. Woodruff at the University of California, San Diego. She collected the dung to obtain DNA samples, which are very difficult to see and study.

The analysis found that in addition to the long recognized savanna elephant, and the recently recognized forest elephant of central Africa, there is a genetically distinct elephant that lives in both the savanna and forest of west Africa. The analysis indicates that elephant diverged from the others about 2 million years ago.

"Our analysis reveals several deeply divergent lineages that do not correspond with the currently recognized taxonomy," the researchers reported in a paper being published in the Oct. 7 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B.

The findings, which need to be confirmed, could have implications for work aimed at protecting the elephants, which are threatened with extinction.

17 September 2002, 13:33

NitroX

DNA from dung??? Isn't it better to get DNA from living tissue such as bone?

The last comment is typical "could have implications for work aimed at protecting the elephants, which are threatened with extinction." Isn't everything threatened with extinction according to the grant seeking clowns.

LE270 - interesting though if it is true

17 September 2002, 13:38

MLindsay

Several of the phs that have hunted CAR and Cameroon for a number of years have always stated there are 3 types of elephants found in the forest. This is especially true of CAR where there is a great mixture of savanna and forest in some areas.

Mike

17 September 2002, 14:13

<CritrChik>

quote:
DNA from dung??? Isn't it better to get DNA from living tissue such as bone

As fecal matter passes through an animals gut, cells from the gut slough off and are excreted with the feces. If it's fresh enough the DNA will not have degraded and it can be extracted from the cells. This is really pretty cool because you can distinguish between individuals, really useful in estimating populations and home ranges, etc.

17 September 2002, 14:17

Customstox

CritrChik,
You really seem to know your shit.

I am sorry I could not help myself.

Chic

17 September 2002, 15:14

<merkelmeister>

The question is do they interbreed in the wild, and are they interbreeding now. You can bet your last dollar that the splitters of hte world will prove that these are three different types, adn that at least one of them is endangered. then the remaining type will also be threatened because they will be found to be less numerous than expected. This is not unllike the salmon stock splitting in the Pacific Northwest, where the same species of Pacific Salmon is for sale at teh supermarket that is protected in the river as endangered.

Suspect the motives of genetic splitters, since most people are more different phenotypically, then the socalled separate species.

You can bet if one of these elephant species had always black eyes, and the other blue eyes, they would be considered separate and distinct species.

There may be very good reasons for protecting separate genetic stocks of game, but the illusion of different species and the political correctness of CITES and DNA testing is a bit of the ends justifying the means.

17 September 2002, 16:18

N'gagi

quote:
Originally posted by merkelmeister:
Suspect the motives of genetic splitters. There may be very good reasons for protecting separate genetic stocks of game, but the illusion of different species and the political correctness of CITES and DNA testing is a bit of the ends justifying the means.

Despite rapid advancements in DNA analysis, I have to believe any real subspecies would have been previously identified. While no expert in the field, I am in the health care industry, and a VERY popular topic among academics is the manipulation of data to gain additional funding and for other less-than-respectable motives.

Many of those who present "questionable" data are on extended vacations on your and my dollar (and alumni dollar) in the interest of saving endangered species. It's not unlike calling in sick to work....

"Uh, something's wrong, but we don't know what...perhaps a few more days in the field will help us to understand. Please send more money, and another batch of grandma's oatmeal cookies, as things are so dreadful here in the black continent!"

For some, it's a misguided love of animals (the little 20-somethings in short-shorts who come on parent financed field trips to spend time with the "field researchers"), and for some it's a summer camp job that lasts for years and years.....with all the fringe benefits.

I hope I'm justed jaded by false research in my own industry, but I can't help but think that anything that "has eyelashes" will win over logic.

just my opinion......

17 September 2002, 16:58

<Hunter - DownUnder>

Ah it must be the very rare "Snuffalupagus" breed.... no-one can actually see them.... (anyone who has kids or can remember seasame st knows what I'm talking about)....

18 September 2002, 00:47

NitroX

CrtirChik

Thanks for the info. I thought you might provide some useful info on DNA if what I said was rubbish.

WHat's the test for Dung DNA freshness? [Confused]

18 September 2002, 03:42

cengel

Actually, Nitro, I think Walterhog would be able to fill us in on dung freshness testing [Razz]

18 September 2002, 08:43

Atkinson

To test the freshness of dung one must smear a bit on his lips, if he constantly licks his lips the dung is old, if fresh he will only lick once...this test, unlike the others has withstood the test of time by those who really know their shit. Thanks Customstox you made my day...

Oh yes, I'm applying for a $500,000. Government grant to test the above for its validity.

19 September 2002, 10:01

CMcDermott

Hard to say how Biologists etc will finally accept DNA testing in determining species, subspecies and family trees. Too much weird data coming in - flamingos closest genetic relatives are grebes (little duck-like birds) - not other shorebirds or any birds in the heron family. Lions and tigers can interbreed and have fertile offspring (called tions or ligars depending on which side the father came from); which turns the old definition of a species on its head.

I'm sure that if you test elephants from the Sudan or other North African area you will find genetic differences from the elephants in Kruger National Park. Elephants don't tend to travel hundreds of miles to breed (much less thousands), so the minor mutations that lead to subspecies don't travel much either. If they DNA tested a lot of elephants from all of Africa, they could probably get away with identifying five or six "subspecies" that don't interbreed very much due to geographic and environmental isolationism. In my opinion (I know, it doesn't count) subspiecies should be a minor footnote in a biology report, not anything that actually matters at all or something that should be used as the basis for enviromental or legal actions.

19 September 2002, 14:05

Jerry Huffaker

Shit, I've never heard so much talking about shit. This whole thread is just full of shit.

19 September 2002, 20:47

Rusty Gunn

quote:
Originally posted by Atkinson:
To test the freshness of dung one must smear a bit on his lips, if he constantly licks his lips the dung is old, if fresh he will only lick once...this test, unlike the others has withstood the test of time by those who really know their shit. Thanks Customstox you made my day...

Oh yes, I'm applying for a $500,000. Government grant to test the above for its validity.

And you'll do all the licking yourself? [Big Grin]

~~~Suluuq

20 September 2002, 05:33

<Berger>

I did an article recently on the two species recently. You can read it at

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1217_leeelephant.html

I'll check up on this latest discovery and see what's up.

20 September 2002, 05:40

amosgreg

Thanks Lee,
Nice Article!

20 September 2002, 12:29

<leo>

They are all African elephants and thus will all interbreed with each other as they mingle. The little forest buff will breed with the large savanna buff.

20 September 2002, 20:24

<Berger>

Actually, what the recent genetic studies showed with the forest and savanna elephants is that contrary to behaviouralists reports of the past 50 years or so indicating that there was interbreeding in the overlap zones, in fact the amount of interbreeding was negligable if at all and did not effect the species' integrity. Thus two clearly distinct species. From a hunting perspective, this does have serious implications as within the next year or so, we will see differing legislation concerning forest vs. savanna elephant. Forest elephants represent about 1/3 of all elephants in Africa so they will almost certainly be identified as extremely endangered by cites while from a conservation point of view the savanna elephant justhad its global numbers decreased by one-third. It poses an interesting problem for not only hunting and general conservation, but law enforcement where the transportation and or legal sale of ivory is concerned.