Borneo elephant

Borneo dwarf elephant

The Borneo dwarf elephant ( Elephas maximus borneensis ), or Bornean elephant called, is a dwarf subspecies of the Asian elephant. He lives in the north of Borneo, in the Malaysian state of Sabah east and far north of Kalimantan. The population is estimated at 1,000 to more than 1,500 animals, according to WWF. Their habitats are lowland forests in northeastern Borneo. His first scientific description is from the year 1950 by Sri Lankan zoologist PEP Deraniyagala ( 1900-1976 ).

Origin

The origin of the Borneo pygmy elephants is controversial. It is held on one side for an indigenous form, on the other side for descendants of imported domesticated elephants from the 16th to the 17th century. The Sunda Islands have always been associated in the Pleistocene to the mainland and formed the Sundaschelf, which elephants could spread to Java southward. 18,000 years ago melted the ice sheet of the last ice age, which tied the water masses of the oceans. Thus disappeared the land bridges that linked Borneo with the other Sunda islands and the mainland.

Nevertheless, the Borneo elephants seem to have long ago separated from the other Asian elephants. In 2003, the Canadian researcher William Sommers found - on behalf of Columbia University, the Sabah Wildlife Department and WWF - through analysis of mitochondrial DNA of the Borneo elephants out that their ancestors in the Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago from the mainland populations parted. For the gene analysis of fresh elephant dung was collected. This includes cells from the gut of animals, from which the genetic material could be isolated. The gene sequences were then compared with those of Asian elephants from ten other regions.

Accordingly, the Borneo pygmy elephants may pose a relic population of those elephants that live in Borneo since the Pleistocene. However, Asian elephants are subfossil not detected from Borneo. Another possibility is that they originally occurred in Java and were placed in historical times by people to Borneo. Since the elephants genetically very different from mainland elephants, they should ultimately be derived from an isolated island population. A possible scenario for this would be that they go back to Java elephants. Thus, some of these might elephants before they became extinct in the 14th century on Java, have been spent by people in today's Philippine province of Sulu. Elephants are here demonstrated in the 16th and 18th centuries. The Sultan of Sulu in the 17th century took some elephants as a gift to Borneo with where they have proliferated and apparently survived to this day. Many facts support this, such as that there is no archaeological evidence of the Borneo elephant on Borneo. In Sulu even the elephants were exterminated in the 18th century.

Features

The Borneo Elephant dwarfs is 2.50 m shoulder height smaller than the other subspecies of the Asian elephant. The Borneo elephants are extraordinarily tame and gentle, another reason why they are held by some scientists for descendants of imported and domesticated elephants. The isolation or Inselverzwergung could be the reason for her in relation to body big ears, long tails and relatively straight tusks.

Threatened with extinction

Since the habitat of elephants, lowland forests are deforested, they are critically endangered. In the red list for endangered species of Borneo elephant has been as Critically Endangered, as critically endangered or critically endangered. WWF works for a long time for the preservation of the forests of Borneo and its many rare animals such as Borneo Orangutan, living in Borneo subspecies of the Sumatran rhinoceros and other species. The Borneo dwarf elephant is found only in the northeast of the island of Borneo. Here you can find him in some reserves, such as in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve.

A female named Chendra (c. 1993) in the Oregon Zoo is the only Borneo dwarf elephant in the United States.