Poaching is rapidly extirpating African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) from most of their historical range, leaving vast areas of elephant-free tropical forest. Elephants are ecological engineers that create and maintain forest habitat; thus, their loss will have large consequences for the composition and structure of Afrotropical forests. Through a comprehensive literature review, we ev...

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are imperiled by poaching and habitat loss. Despite global attention to the plight of elephants, their population sizes and trends are uncertain or unknown over much of Africa. To conserve this iconic species, conservationists need timely, accurate data on elephant populations. Here, we report the results of the Great Elephant Census (GEC), the first conti...

We analyzed data from over 4500 elephants to show that animals in European zoos have about half the median life span of conspecifics in protected populations in range countries. This discrepancy is clearest in Asian elephants; unlike African elephants in zoos, this species' infant mortality is very high (for example, twice that seen in Burmese timber camps), and its adult survivorship in zoos h...

Elephants are the largest extant herbivores on earth. Although the average weight of adult Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) tends to be less than that of adult African elephants (Loxodonta africana), in the wild their weight ranges overlap (Asian, 1,800-5,000 kg [4,000-11,000 lb]; African, 1,800-6,000 kg [4,000-13,000 lb]) and are influenced by age, sex, health, and food supply. Their nutrient...

Unlike the smaller and more vulnerable mammals, African elephants have relatively few predators that threaten their survival. The sound of disturbed African honeybees Apis meliffera scutellata causes African elephants Loxodonta africana to retreat and produce warning vocalizations that lead other elephants to join the flight. In our first experiment, audio playbacks of bee sounds induced elepha...

Body mass is the primary determinant of an animal's energy requirements. At their optimum walking speed, large animals have lower mass-specific energy requirements for locomotion than small ones. In animals ranging in size from 0.8 g (roach) to 260 kg (zebu steer), the minimum cost of transport (COT(min)) decreases with increasing body size roughly as COT(min)∝body mass (M(b))(-0.316±0.023) (95...

BACKGROUND Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is a recurring problem that appears wherever the range of elephants and humans overlap. Different methods including the use of electric fences are used worldwide to mitigate this conflict. Nonetheless, elephants learn quickly that their tusks do not conduct electricity and use them to break down fences (fence-breakers). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS I...

The present study conducted serosurveillance for the presence of antibody to pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 virus (H1N1pdm virus) in archival serum samples collected between 2009 and 2013 from 317 domestic elephants living in 19 provinces situated in various parts of Thailand. To obtain the most accurate data, hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) assay was employed as the screening test; and sera...

This study quantified social life events hypothesized to affect the welfare of zoo African and Asian elephants, focusing on animals that were part of a large multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional elephant welfare study in North America. Age was calculated based on recorded birth dates and an age-based account of life event data for each elephant was compiled. These event histories included fa...