Species

African Elephant

Citation Formats

General Reference

Nature Atlas. "African Elephant." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/species/african-elephant.

APA Style

Nature Atlas. (n.d.). African Elephant. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/species/african-elephant

BibTeX

@misc{natureatlas-african-elephant,
  author = {Nature Atlas},
  title = {African Elephant},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/species/african-elephant},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The largest living land animal, native to the savanna grasslands, forests and semi-desert of sub-Saharan Africa. Both sexes commonly carry tusks, unlike the Asian elephant, and its ears are notably larger, an adaptation for radiating excess body heat in a hot climate. African elephants live in matriarchal family groups led by an experienced older female, communicate over long distances using low-frequency sounds below the range of human hearing, and are recognized as a keystone species: their feeding and movement shapes vegetation structure across the savanna in ways that benefit many other species.

Facts

Disputed

Conservation Status

Endangered 2

In March 2021 the IUCN Red List, for the first time, assessed African elephants as two separate species rather than one: the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) as Endangered, and the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) as Critically Endangered, following new genetic evidence. Before that reassessment the combined single-species value was Vulnerable. This atlas models a single African Elephant entity, so the single value Endangered here (kept as the larger-population savanna species' status, this atlas's prior value) is a simplification of a genuinely split picture rather than a settled fact; marked debated rather than attested for that reason, and a taxonomy question is raised asking whether the entity should be split to match. See the accompanying taxonomy question.

Population Estimate

415,000 3

The IUCN's most recent continent-wide assessment splits the African elephant into two species, savanna and forest, whose combined wild population is estimated near 415,000, but forest elephant numbers in particular are drawn from surveys of dense, hard-to-access habitat and carry wide uncertainty; some regional counts are years out of date.

Scientific Name

Loxodonta africana 1

Cross-Tradition Connections