Asian Elephant(Elephas maximus)
The elephant is the largest terrestrial animal that evolved nearly 60 million years ago.

Family: Elephantidae
Order: Proboscidea
Status: Endangered (EN A1cd)

Subspecies
Elephas maximus maximus(Sri Lankan elephant)
Elephas maximus indicus (Asian Mainland elephant)
Elephas maximus sumatranus (Sumatran elephant)

Elephants in Borneo, on the basis of their genetic distinctiveness and evolutionary history, may constitute a separate subspecies, Elephas maximus borneensis according to DNA analysis carried out by Fernando et al., (2003).

Range and distribution

The Asian elephants were distributed over a large area extending from the Tigris-Euphrates basin, eastward through the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia to north of the Yangtze river in China. An estimated 44,000 wild Asian elephants are presently distributed in thirteen Asian countries, viz., India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China (only southern Yunnan), Malaysia (peninsular Malaysia and Sabah) and Indonesia (Sumatra and Kalimantan). There are about 16,000 elephants in captivity, found mostly in Myanmar, Thailand and India.

Asian and African elephants – the difference

• Although both Asian and African elephants have five toes on each foot, they differ in the number of nails present on the toes. Asian elephants generally have 5 nails in the forefoot and 4 on the hind.
• The Asian elephant has only one finger at the trunk tip compared to two in the African.
• African elephants have roughly half moon shaped plates/lamellae, where as in the Asian, the ridges are transverse and parallel.
• In Asian elephants, females do not have tusks unlike their African counterparts.
• African elephants compared to their Asian counterparts have larger tusks.