New Elephant Species

By Susan Linville

Posted May 30, 2025

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Transcript

D: Hey Yaël, did you hear the news. There's a new elephant species?

Y: A new species, Don? Are you telling me elephants were hiding somewhere?

D: No. Scientists suspected that two populations, African savanna and African forest elephants, were separate species because of their size differences. Forest elephants are three feet shorter at the shoulder than savanna elephants, weigh half as much, and have an extra front toe. But they couldn't be sure about their suspicions until researchers compared African elephant, Asian elephant, woolly mammoth, and mastodon DNA.

Y: Wait a minute. Mammoths and mastodons are extinct.

D: That's right, Yaël. They had to get DNA from fossilized teeth.

Y: That seems like a lot of work to compare elephant DNA.

D: It is. But getting fossil DNA was important for their comparison. You see, when a species is separated into two isolated geographic populations, unique genetic mutations occur in each population over long periods of time. The longer the populations are apart, the greater the changes. At a certain point, the two populations diverge enough to be called different species.

Y: So, the savanna and forest elephants have diverged?

D: Yes. Scientists use changes in DNA as a type of clock to estimate how long two species have been separated. Researchers found that not only are savanna and forest elephants different species, they diverged from each other at about the same time that Asian elephant and woolly mammoths diverged.

Y: Wasn't that a long time ago?

D: At least 1.9 million years. That's almost as old as the split between chimpanzees and humans.

Y: Wow. DNA research is amazing.

D: It sure is. Researchers found a new species hiding in plain sight. I can't wait to see what they discover next.

(Image by Adobe Stock)

A new elephant species? Are you telling me elephants were hiding somewhere?

No. Scientists suspected that two populations, African savanna and African forest elephants, were separate species because of their size differences. Forest elephants are three feet shorter at the shoulder than savanna elephants, weigh half as much, and have an extra front toe. But they couldn't be sure about their suspicions until researchers compared African elephant, Asian elephant, woolly mammoth, and mastodon DNA.

But, Mammoths and mastodons are extinct. They had to get DNA from fossilized teeth. Getting fossil DNA was important for their comparison. When a species is separated into two isolated geographic populations, unique genetic mutations occur in each population over long periods of time. The longer the populations are apart, the greater the changes. At a certain point, the two populations diverge enough to be called different species.

So, the savanna and forest elephants have diverged.

Scientists use changes in DNA as a type of clock to estimate how long two species have been separated. Researchers found that not only are savanna and forest elephants different species, they diverged from each other at about the same time that Asian elephant and woolly mammoths diverged.

At least 1.9 million years. That's almost as old as the split between chimpanzees and humans.

Learn more

Source

Rohland, et al. 2010. Genomic DNA Sequences from mastodon and woolly mammoth reveal deep speciation of forest and savanna elephants. PLOS Biology, 8 (12): e10000564 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.10000564.