ELEPHANTS 
715 
may be considered members of the genus Loxodonta. A 
pygmy species living in West Africa has been described re¬ 
cently, but it has no standing in nature, being simply a 
young specimen of the West African elephant. The only true 
pygmy species at present known are the fossil ones from the 
Mediterranean basin. The genus Loxodonta was doubt¬ 
less of African derivation in late Miocene time. Allied 
forms derived from the African stock appeared in southern 
Europe and Asia in the Pliocene, but the genus continued to 
exist in tropical Africa, to which region it is now confined. 
The genus is represented by a single species of which three 
or four geographical races may be recognized by differences 
in shape of ears and body size. Elephants were until re¬ 
cently quite universally distributed over Africa, from the 
northern borders of Abyssinia and the southern edge of 
the Sahara Desert southward to the Cape, from sea-level 
to the limits of vegetation on the highest mountains. At 
the present time they have been exterminated over a con¬ 
siderable part of this area and exist only in the more remote 
and inaccessible tropical portions of the continent. 
Cape Elephant 
Loxodonta africana capensis 
Native Names: Swahili, tembo; Masai, ol-tome; Luganda, njovu; 
Acholi, leati. 
Elephas capensis Cuvier, 1798, Tableau Elementaire, p. 149. 
Range. —From the Cape region of South Africa north¬ 
ward throughout the East Coast and central lake region, 
through British East Africa and Uganda to the Abyssinian 
highlands and Somaliland; west as far as the Congo-Nile 
watershed; at present exterminated over much of this ter¬ 
ritory and confined, except where preserved, to the more 
inaccessible parts. 
The earliest name for the African elephant was pro¬ 
posed by Blumenbach in 1779, who applied to it the name 
africana and described the range as Middle and South 
Africa. A decade later Cuvier described the African ele¬ 
phant as a species, capensis , not being aware of Blumen- 
bach’s earlier name. In order to make Cuvier’s name ap¬ 
plicable for the race occurring in southern and eastern Africa, 
