Talk:Elephant

Sri Lankan elephant

• From Sri Lankan elephant: Only 7% of males bear tusks.(ref= Jayewardene, J. (1994) The elephant in Sri Lanka. Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka, Colombo) However, according to the elephant census conducted in 2011 by the Wildlife Conservation Department of Sri Lanka, only 2% of the total population are tuskers.
• From Asian elephant Some males may also lack tusks... and are especially common among the Sri Lankan elephant population... (ref= Clutton-Brock, J. (1987). A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. London: British Museum (Natural History). p. 208. ISBN 0-521-34697-5.)
• BBC
• Sunday Times

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Should recognized "Tuskers" be included?

Around the world there are a couple of individual elephants known (and respected) for the exceptional size of the tusks. In nature reserves specifically these individuals are extremely popular, and actively sought out for photographs. Could/should these be listed in a new section? Sakkie Coetzee (talk) 10:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. This page is not + should not become a guide for tusker 'hunters', be it tourists or photographers. – BhagyaMani (talk) 11:18, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Issues with "Evolution and extinct relatives" section

I have some issues with this section:

• Platybelodon and other members of the family Amebelodontidae are now generally not considered "gomphotheres" (as messy as that term is taxonomically).
• The estimate placing Palaeoloxodon namadicus as the largest amimal of all time, it to put lightly, extremely speculative. As the paper itself notes, it's based on a single unlocated partial femur mentioned in an early 19th century publication as 20% larger than a measured femur. The paper itself notes that the estimate should be taken with a grain of salt.
• Continues to refer to Palaeoloxodon recki as Elephas recki, which is inconsistent with the Wikipedia article on the animal, as well as recent scientific literaure on Palaeoloxodon

Overall, the section seems somewhat poorly organised for a featured article (though I appreciate it's not the main focus by any means). I'll probably get around to improving it in the coming days. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I missed this. Hemiauchenia, do you still plan on working on this? LittleJerry (talk) 15:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I think I'm mostly finished with this section. Sorry for stepping on your toes a bit while reworking the section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:49, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Good job! LittleJerry (talk) 23:10, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, does the 2021 article have a cladogram? LittleJerry (talk) 00:20, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

No, but there's a half-decent cladogram in this paper, but it has a number of problems, most notably that Stegodon is recovered within modern elephants, which is not found in basically any other phylogenetic analysis and I think is likely to be erroneous, so I'm not sure it would be usable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:26, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

It might be okay if Elephantoidea is collapsed to a single node. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:29, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually, having thought about it more, I think the cladogram in figure 5 from this paper is probably better. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't the other paper broadly support this cladogram? LittleJerry (talk) 01:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Proboscidea early proboscideans, e.g. Moeritherium Deinotheriidae Elephantiformes Mammutidae Gomphotheriidae Stegodontidae Elephantidae Loxodonta Mammuthus Elephas

Proboscidea phylogeny based on upper molars.

Yeah, that cladogram looks good to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Do you think we should add a few more clades like Amebelodontidae? LittleJerry (talk) 01:32, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I think adding Amebelodontidae would be a good idea. One current issue with the cladogram is is that "Gomphotheriidae" is widely agreed to be paraphyletic, so it might be worth representing them with two nodes (one closer to elephantids and stegodontids than the other node) with a combined label, as is done for example for the label of Maxiliopoda in the phylogeny section of the Arthropoda article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay well, I'm not good at making or changing cladograms. Maybe Chiswick Chap can help? LittleJerry (talk) 01:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I've managed to find another half-decent cladogram [1], doesn't include the amebelodontids unfortunately, but does include most of the other taxa, and avoids WP:SYNTH problems. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, do you think the evolution section could be trimmed some and have more details at the Proboscidea? Perhaps the first paragraph could give an overview of Proboscidea pre-Elephantimorph. The second paragraph could start with Elephantimorphs and lead into Elephantidae and then talk about extinction. LittleJerry (talk) 23:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I think that the broad evolutionary history narrative in the first few paragraphs is as concise as it can reasonably be without losing coherence. I think the morphological evolution and dwarf elephant sections could be cut down though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I removed those. LittleJerry (talk) 10:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

No issue with those removals, I think they are much better placed in Proboscidea. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:22, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

References

Elephants vs Elephantidae

I don’t understand why this article excludes extinct elephantids.

Pretty much every other article for a group of animals goes over some of its extinct and prehistoric members. I understand wanting to prioritize extant animals but you can do that without completely ignoring the taxon they belong to. Maxwatermelon (talk) 18:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

It is handled at the family (Elephantidae) and superfamily level (Elephantoidea) because in this case, that works out better. The family includes such species as the mammoths, which are not called elephants. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2023

In the Internal systems section, change "It's apex has two pointed ends," to "Its apex has two pointed ends," MLL1973 (talk) 13:18, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:53, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Some inline citations are still incomplete

This article cites multiple works by J. Shoshani, but it still includes many inline citations that include only the author's name and a page number, without the title of the work that was cited. Should these citations include the titles in addition to the author's name? Jarble (talk) 16:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

No. The work is still clearly identifiable, though I would strongly prefer it include a year (this would prevent potential confusion with Shoshani 1998 and Shoshani 2005, even if they are cited using a different format). :3 F4U (they/it) 17:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit requestyes on 15 August 2023

2603:8001:D00:E3F2:8B:E8B3:26EF:5919 (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. UtherSRG (talk) 16:08, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Use of File:African Bush Elephant.jpg violates GNU FDL license

The license to the original image is very restrictive. Currently, the article does not credit the author, which is required:

Attribution of this image to the author (Muhammad Mahdi Karim) is required in a prominent location near to the image.

This even led to a question being asked on Law Stack Exchange about this issue.

I will be replacing the main image with an equivalent one, which is CC-BY-SA-2.0. -- Hugo Spinelli (talk) 19:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Muhammad Mahdi Karim? LittleJerry (talk) 00:40, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

We certainly can ask if the author would multi-license their work.... — xaosflux ^Talk 01:26, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

FAL added as well. Thanks for asking :-) --Muhammad(talk) 10:33, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Hugo Spinelli FYI, this image now has additional licensing, compatible with CCBYSA4. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Feel free to revert it if you prefer the original image. Either one is fine with me. -- Hugo Spinelli (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Temporal glands and mammary glands are not sex organs

Why are the temporal and mammary glands described in this section about sex organs? Jarble (talk) 21:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

They are related to sexual behavior. LittleJerry (talk) 22:19, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

But they are secondary sex characteristics, not sex organs. 17:45, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

You can move them then. LittleJerry (talk) 15:22, 4 March 2024 (UTC)