712 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



The ancient African evidence rests chiefly upon the Fayum 

 beds, but elephant remains of Miocene age, representing an 

 aberrant type, Dinotherium, have also been found near 

 Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Rudolf, in equatorial Africa. 

 A mastodon of Pleistocene age is also recorded from South 

 Africa. There exists to-day only a small remnant of the 

 family, representing but two genera, Elephas^ confined to 

 southern Asia, and Loxodonta, confined to Ethiopian Africa. 



African Elephant 



Loxodonta 



Loxodonta F. Cuvier, 1827, Zool. Journ., vol. Ill, p. 140; type Elephas 

 africanus Blumenbach. 



Although Cuvier established the genus Loxodonta for the 

 African elephants more than eighty years ago, the African 

 has been associated by naturalists generally with the In- 

 dian elephant in the genus Elephas. Cuvier called attention 

 to the much wider or lozenge shape and the lesser number 

 of the enamel plates in the molar teeth in the African ele- 

 phant in comparison with the Indian, and upon such distinc- 

 tion the genus was founded. Owing, however, to there 

 being but two living forms, no attempt has been made to 

 recognize the generic distinction between the two except by 

 some paleontologists, who have many species to consider 

 and find such a generic division of importance in the classi- 

 fication. Besides the differences in the molar teeth there 

 are many other distinctions in structure which are of ge- 

 neric value. The skull in the African elephant is evenly 

 rounded on the crown, being perfectly dome-shaped and 

 without the median depression which in the Indian separates 

 the crown into two rounded knobs or bosses. An important 

 external distinction between the two elephants is the enor- 

 mous size of the ear in the African elephant, in which it cov- 

 ers the entire neck and withers and reaches as low as the 

 breast, the height often equalling half the standing height 

 of the animal. The African also has a more sloping dorsal 

 profile, the body sloping downward from the crown of the 



