The savanna elephant is the largest extant mammal and often inhabits hot and arid environments. Due to their large size, it might be expected that elephants have particular physiological adaptations, such as adjustments to the rhythms of their core body temperature (T(b)) to deal with environmental challenges. This study describes for the first time the T(b) daily rhythms in savanna elephants. ...

African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are genetically and morphologically distinct from their savannah counterparts, but their biology remains poorly understood. In this study, I use noninvasive fecal DNA analyses to examine the relatedness structure and historical demography of forest elephants at 2 sites in SW Gabon, central Africa. Pairwise relatedness values calculated between 162 e...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) has been shown to be the main causative agent of tuberculosis in elephants worldwide. M. tb may be transmitted from infected humans to other species including elephants and vice versa, in case of prolonged intensive contact. An accurate diagnostic approach covering all phases of the infection in elephants is required. As M. tb is an intracellular pathogen and ...

Increasing habitat fragmentation and human population growth in Africa has resulted in an escalation in human-elephant conflict between small-scale farmers and free-ranging African elephants (Loxodonta Africana). In 2012 Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) implemented the national 10-year Conservation and Management Strategy for the Elephant in Kenya, which includes an action aimed at testing whether ...

in A Week with Elephants (eds Daniel, J. C. and Datye, H. S.), Bombay Natural History Society and Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1995, pp. 532. 35. Poole, J. H., Coming of Age with Elephants, Hyperion Press, New York, 1996. 36. Vidya, T. N. C., Fernando, P., Melnick, D. J. and Sukumar, R., Molecular genetic structure and conservation of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations across Indi...

The Phoenix Zoo is currently housing three female wild-born Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) who came to us from other organizations with a variety of health and behavioral problems, some of which have been exasperated since arriving at our facility. Each of these elephants has had a troubled past and they were labeled as ‘problem animals’. The Phoenix Zoo, through various circumstances, acqui...

As new technology makes it possible to perform experiments that were unimaginable a decade ago, Eve Marder argues that we can still learn from the past.