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A mysterious bony growth found in elephants' feet is actually a sixth "toe", scientists report. For more than 300 years, the structure has puzzled researchers, but this study suggests that it helps to support elephants' colossal weight. Fossils reveal that this "pre-digit" evolved about 40 million years ago, at a point when early elephants became larger and more land-based. The research is published in the journal Science. Lead author Professor John Hutchinson, from the UK's structure and motion laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College, said: "It's a cool mystery that goes back to 1706, when the first elephant was dissected...

An elephant said to have the longest tusks in Asia has died in Sri Lanka. The animal, named Millangoda Raja, was about 70 years old and had served in a ceremonial capacity for several decades in the city of Kandy. Many Asian elephants, smaller in stature than their African cousins, fail to grow tusks at all. But Millangoda Raja's tusks were so long that they reached to the ground. There are now plans to stuff the dead elephant and put him on public display. His owner, Appuhami Millangoda, recalled that Millangoda Raja had been among a batch of elephants he...

Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons has a message for those outraged by a four-minute video of an elephant hunt in Zimbabwe on his Go Daddy video site. More Video Watch: Hunter Illegally Kills Bear Using Pastries Watch: Nat Geo: Leopard Queen Watch: Hole Rips in Roof of Plane"I think if you had all the facts and you knew exactly what was going on and the difference it makes in these people's lives there," he told ABC News Radio, "you'd feel completely different." Parsons has said he participated in the hunt because the elephants were a nuisance destroying crops the local...

“So be it, I'm not ashamed of what I did... All these people that are complaining that this shouldn't happen, that these people who are starving to death otherwise shouldn't eat these elephants, you probably see them driving through at McDonald cutting a steak. These people (in Zimbabwe) don't have that option,” he told the station by phone. Conflict with humans is the biggest threat to the African elephant, according to the World Wildlife Fund. "As the elephants continue to raid crop fields, farmers are being killed while trying to defend their fields and elephants are becoming the source of...

"Schools don’t need more money, they need more parents." http://considerandhearme.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/obama-elephants-and-fathers/

One of the things that came up in the many comments appended to the article on Bob's painting of extinct Maltese animals was the famous Egyptian tomb painting of the 'pygmy mammoth'. You're likely already familiar with this (now well known) case: here's the image, as it appears on the beautifully decorated tomb wall of Rekhmire, 'Governor of the Town' of Thebes, and vizier of Egypt during the reigns of Tuthmose III and Amenhotep II (c. 1479 to 1401 BCE) during the XVIII dynasty... In 1994, Baruch Rosen published a brief article in Nature in which he drew attention to...

Genetic researchers may have resolved a long-standing dispute by proving there are two species of African elephant.Savannah and forest elephants have been separated for at least three million years, they say, and are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants are from the extinct woolly mammoth. The researchers also made what they say are the first sequences of nuclear DNA from the extinct American mastodon. > "The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths," said Michi Hofreiter, a specialist in ancient DNA at the UK's York...

A speeding goods train has crushed seven elephants to death in eastern India after the animals tried to rescue two calves that got stuck in the tracks. The baby elephants became trapped as a herd was crossing the line in a densely forested area in the northern district of Jalpaiguri in West Bengal state on Wednesday night. "Five elephants died immediately on the track while two others succumbed to their injuries on Thursday morning," Atanu Raha, West Bengal's chief forest conservator, said. The adults had crowded around the stricken calves to protect them when they were hit, he added. The...

Mice are bad enough, according to the myth - but the creature that really fills an elephant with fear is a lot smaller.Ants are getting the better of nature's biggest land beast on the African savannah, scientists have discovered. The ants act as guardians of acacia trees, which risk being ravaged by hungry elephants. Any elephant foolish enough to approach an ant-protected tree is liable to find swarms of the angry insects crawling up its trunk. Experts believe the ant tree-guards play a vital ecosystem role that has previously been overlooked. Professor Todd Palmer, from the University of Florida, US,...

It is said that elephants are afraid of mice, but scientists have discovered what elephants are really afraid of: bees. It turns out that the enormous mammals sound an alarm when they encounter bees, and that knowledge could help save African farmers' crops from elephants -- and could save elephants, too. Elephants and humans don't always live well together, particularly in African countries including Kenya. A single hungry elephant can wipe out a family's crops overnight. During the harvest season, farmers will huddle by fires all night, and when an elephant comes near, they will jump up with flaming sticks...

In July 2008 a severe persecution of Christians broke out in the Indian state of Orissa. A 22 year old nun was burnt to death when angry mobs burnt down an orphanage in Khuntpali village in Barhgarh district, another nun was gang raped in Kandhamal, mobs attacked churches, torched vehicles, houses of Christians destroyed, and Fr. Thomas Chellen, director of the pastoral center that was destroyed with a bomb, had a narrow escape after a Hindu mob nearly set him on fire.  The end result saw more than 500 Christians murdered, and thousands of others injured and homeless after their houses...

The Saint Louis Zoo's two-and-a-half-year-old Asian elephant named Jade is undergoing treatment for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), according to Curator of Mammals Martha Fischer. Jade was successfully treated for EEHV in February of this year and since then her blood tests had been negative. The virus is potentially fatal to elephants. "Jade is holding her own," according to Fischer. "We have continued to monitor our young elephants very closely every day for symptoms of EEHV and check their blood levels regularly." A cooperative multi-institutional research effort to study EEHV and find a cure has been underway for the last several...

Here's how to pitch this (true) story to Hollywood: Ordinary guy named John, ordinary Sunday, cycling home into a setting sun. Monster roars out of the bushes! John abandons his bike, flees in terror. The creature smashes the bicycle, catches him in a few short strides, grabs him by the shirt. But he slides out of his shirt and falls to the ground. It picks him up again and he slips out of his trousers. Naked, too afraid to even to scream, he scrambles away. But he doesn't get far. The shrieking monster smashes him against a tree. Camera pans...

The accidental death of an elephant which had become bogged in mud 200,000 years ago led to the perfect preservation of its skeleton -- and a remarkable scientific discovery... the skeleton of the prehistoric ancestor to the modern Asian elephant which was fossilised in an abandoned sand quarry in East Java, Indonesia. The ancient bones were discovered after land collapsed at the sand quarry on the Indonesian island, adjacent to the Solo River, which killed two men in April. Researchers from the University of Wollongong in Australia and the Geological Survey Institute spent four weeks excavating the bones of the...

BANDUNG, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian scientists are reconstructing the largest, most complete skeleton of a prehistoric giant elephant ever found in the tropics, a finding that may offer new clues into the largely mysterious origins of its modern Asian cousin. The prehistoric elephant is believed to have been submerged in quicksand shortly after dying on a riverbed in Java around 200,000 years ago. Its bones—almost perfectly preserved—were discovered by chance in March. The animal stood four meters (13-feet) tall, was five meters (16-feet) long and weighed more than 10 tons. It was considerably larger than the great Asian mammals now...

King of Pop Michael Jackson is reportedly planning to enter London concerts riding.The 50-year-old also wants a panther, snakes, tropical birds and three monkeys for a set that will have a jungle, circus and weather theme. “He hopes to make it the most spectacular gig ever. For the jungle section, he wants to ride out on an African elephant with panthers led on gold chains. Parrots and other birds will fly behind him. If it goes to plan it will look incredible,” the Mirror quoted an insider, as saying. According to sources, the Thriller hitmaker also hopes to rope in...

Pink elephant is caught on camera By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News The little pink calf was spotted in amongst an 80-strong elephant herd A pink baby elephant has been caught on camera in Botswana. A wildlife cameraman took pictures of the calf when he spotted it among a herd of about 80 elephants in the Okavango Delta. Experts believe it is probably an albino, which is an extremely rare phenomenon in African elephants. They are unsure of its chances of long-term survival - the blazing African sunlight may cause blindness and skin problems for the calf. Mike Holding,...

Cameras have revealed how elephants are able to get a drink of fresh water when faced with a stagnant waterhole. A BBC team discovered that the tusked giants use their trunks to delicately siphon off clean liquid that has settled at the top of the dirty pool. The footage shows how the elephants move incredibly slowly to avoid stirring up any sediment. The Natural History Unit team said this was the first time that they had seen this resourceful behaviour.

One of the most iconic images of American life, that of circus elephants joined trunk-to-tail as they lumber along to delight “children of all ages,” as the old saying goes, is about to be debated in a courtroom. Are the beasts docile because they are highly intelligent and respond well to training, reinforced with the promise of apples, carrots, water and kindness at day’s end? Or do they obey because their spirits have been broken and they fear getting hit by their trainers? These are among the questions that will be asked when a lawsuit by a coalition of animal...

Zimbabwean soldiers are being given elephant meat for their rations, a wildlife campaigner has told the BBC. Jonny Rodrigues from the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said that several soldiers had complained to him that was the only meat they were given. Zimbabwe is believed to have some 100,000 elephants - more than its parks can sustainably hold and its economy is in freefall. The defence ministry has not yet commented on the reports. Mr Rodrigues said that the use of elephant meat began last June but has recently increased. It is cheaper and easier to use elephant meat Jonny Rodrigues...

South Africa has held the world's biggest legal sale of ivory for almost 20 years. The auction in Pretoria of more than 51 tonnes of elephant tusks was sanctioned by the UN body which oversees trade in endangered species. The tusks sold for $142 per kilo, netting the government $6.7m (£4.2m) -less than expected. The South African government has been condemned by conservation groups and other African countries for the sale.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Poachers in Congo have killed a fifth of the elephants in Africa's oldest national park this year as China buys more ivory, the park's director said on Friday. Rwandan rebels have killed seven Savannah elephants in the past 10 days alone in the Virunga National Park, along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda, Emmanuel de Merode told Reuters

Elephants thought extinct may have survived Pygmy elephant with radio collar. Credit: Cede Prudente The Borneo pygmy elephant may not be native to the island of Borneo after all. Instead, the population could be the last survivors of the Javan elephant race – accidentally saved from extinction by the Sultan of Sulu centuries ago, suggests an article co-authored by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The origins of the pygmy elephants, found only on the northeast tip of the island in part of the Heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery. Their looks and behavior differ from other Asian...

Watch this amazing video of an elephant painting a portrait of another elephant. This is the most amazing thing I have seen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE This may cause humans to reevaluate the way we view other species.....!!

Elephants Never Forget I usually don't pass on these motivational type stories, but this one is actually really interesting. Mykle Mbembe was a student at UCLA who graduated in 1985. After the ceremony he decided to return to his home country of Zimbabwe and visit his tribe, before he started his career as an architect. One day while on a hike he came upon a distressed young bull elephant. The elephant was holding one foot in the air while trumpeting loudly. Mbembe approached the elephant with caution, and discovered that the creature had a large piece of wood lodged deep...

If ever there was an exhibit with an awe factor at the Houston Zoo, it would have to be the elephants. Mac, the newest attracting, is now just over a year old. Cute, sure. But there’s something else about these elephants that isn’t readily apparent – something which, in the future, may or may not become a problem. “It’s latent. Some animals manifest it. Others live for a long time with it, like our bull elephant and our female,” Zoo Director Rick Barongi said. “It” is a deadly elephant version of the herpes

Circus Sued For Alleged Elephant Cruelty Circus Defends Practices, Says It Controls Animals HumanelyPOSTED: 2:18 am EDT August 24, 2007 UPDATED: 2:27 am EDT August 24, 2007 NEW YORK -- A lawsuit, seeking better treatment for circus elephants, will proceed. After seven years of legal wrangling, a federal judge rejected efforts by Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey to derail a lawsuit alleging animal cruelty. Animal rights groups said the use of sharp hooks by trainers, the routine use of chains, the separation of baby elephants from their mothers and other circus practices are violations of the Endangered Species Act....

Elephants, Human Ancestors Evolved in Synch, DNA Reveals Hope Hamashige for National Geographic News July 23, 2007 The tooth of a mastodon buried beneath Alaska's permafrost for many thousands of years is yielding surprising clues about the history of elephants—and humans. A team of researchers recently extracted DNA from the tooth to put together the first complete mastodon mitochondrial genome. The study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, significantly alters the evolutionary timeline for elephants and their relatives. The research may put to rest a contentious debate by showing that woolly mammoths are more closely related to Asian elephants than...

BANGKOK, Thailand — An angry circus elephant in eastern Thailand grabbed a man who had provoked him and then stomped on him until he was fatally injured, police said Saturday.Surat Kaenthip, a 30-year-old air conditioner repairman, had hit the six-year-old elephant while he was resting in an open field Friday in Rayong province, 90 miles east of Bangkok, said police Lt. Col. Thanit Saeniwong na Ayuddhaya.

See for example this thread first. From Thailand, a news story that's grim A man dies when an elephant stomps him The beast had been provoked by the man it was poked So I guess this proves the man was dim!

Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande. It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents. “The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th...

Why elephants avoid the high road 17:20 24 July 2006 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi Elephants do their utmost to avoid going uphill, a new satellite-tracking study shows – their finely balanced metabolism may reveal why. Researchers tracked elephants by satellite and found that the animals avoid travelling up slopes whenever possible. Calculations suggest an explanation for this behaviour: the big beasts would have to spend hours eating to compensate for travelling up even a relatively gentle incline. Scientists know that elephants can climb relatively steep mountainous terrain if they must. The North African general Hannibal is even said to...

Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer. Until she heard Mozart. "Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday. "She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression." Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too. Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical music just opposite...

NEW YORK (AP) -- With their colorful headgear and repertoire of tricks, they're top-billed stars of The Greatest Show on Earth. But away from the arena, the Asian elephants used in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus are at the heart of perhaps the most bitter animal-care fight around, one that's dragged through court for six years already and is inching toward a trial. It's a heavyweight bout, pitting America's biggest circus against some of the most influential animal-welfare groups. Ringling insists that its elephants receive state-of-the-art treatment and it's determined to keep them in its cast. Its...

The Asian elephants used in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus are at the heart of perhaps the most bitter animal-care fight around, one that's dragged through court for six years already and is inching toward a trial. Its adversaries - a group including the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Animal Welfare Institute - argue vehemently that circus life is inherently cruel to the elephants. They allege that the use of sharpened hooks by trainers, the routine use of chains, the separation of baby elephants...

GUWAHATI: Strict surveillance by the Election Commission may have taken away the usual fanfare from the coming Assam Assembly election but voters will not be deprived of majestic elephants, huge country boats and bullock carts, which would be used during the hustings. In the heart of the state, which also comprises the capital constituency within Kamrup district, as many as seven tuskers will be used to carry polling personnel and poll materials to hilly and inaccessible areas. According to Kamrup district (rural) Deputy Commissioner Ganesh Kalita, three tuskers would be used to carry poll materials to a remote polling station...

Get out of the way... he hasn't forgotten By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 16/02/2006) The reputation that elephants have for never forgetting has been given a chilling new twist by experts who believe that a generation of pachiderms may taking revenge on humans for the breakdown of elephant society. The New Scientist reports today that elephants appear to be attacking human settlements as vengeance for years of abuse by people. In Uganda, for example, elephant numbers have never been lower or food more plentiful, yet there are reports of the creatures blocking roads and trampling through villages, apparently without...

Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary. Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy. "I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery." Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died...

Maxine, Patty and Happy are in their mid-30s and likely to live a very long time. But someday, their deaths will precipitate the end of their habitat - the elephant exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. The three female Asian pachyderms are in good health, but the zoo will not replace them after they die, said Steve Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo. Once the Bronx Zoo closes its elephant exhibit - whenever that may be - New York City will be left with no pachyderm exhibits. The elephant exhibits at the Central Park and...

In a female elephant gang, few animals bother the oldest and biggest of the group because they know she will not put up with any nonsense, according to a new study that found age and size determine wild female elephant hierarchies. The study, published in the current issue of Animal Behavior, presents some of the first data on dominance and the social lives of adult, wild female elephants, Loxodonta africana. Females of this species hang out together in family groups for most of their lives. Humans may shrink as they get older, but not elephants. "Female elephants never stop growing,...

Indian elephants preparing to perform in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator are drinking daily doses of vodka to help them survive temperatures as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius, a media report said. The elephants are working for the Moscow State Circus, which on Sunday plans to hold its first show in Mongolia in 25 years, the UB Post newspaper said in a report posted on its website. The elephants had to travel on trucks from Moscow to Ulan Bator because they were too large to be transported by rail with the rest of the circus. To help the...

Mammoth Findings: Asian elephant is closest living kin Sid Perkins A study of a woolly mammoth that died in Siberia several millennia ago has yielded the complete DNA sequence of the creature's mitochondria, the energy factories of the animal's cells. Comparison with the mitochondrial genomes of living elephants indicates that the mammoth is slightly more closely related to the Asian elephant than to the African elephant. COUSIN HAIRY. A new genetic analysis suggests that the woolly mammoth is more closely related to the Asian elephant than to the African elephant. J. Tucciarone Fossil evidence had suggested that woolly mammoths and...

When male Asian elephants enter their annual period of heightened sexual activity and aggression, they broadcast their availability to the ladies by pumping out a pungent mix of pheromones. But older males have the upper hand on their younger, less experienced competition, producing a more attractive mix of scents, a new study shows. This mating period is called musth (pronounced "must"). Researchers analyzed more than 100 secretion samples from six males and found that this pheromone, called frontalin, exists in two mirror-image molecular forms designated as "plus" and "minus." When teenage males start producing frontalin, they produce mostly the plus...

Once in danger of being wiped out by poachers, elephants have overrun a Kenyan coastal preserve. They've raided nearby farms and even attacked villagers, forcing wildlife authorities there to move about 400 of them to a bigger game park farther inland in Africa's largest-ever elephant relocation. A family of five elephants was the first to be relocated Friday from the coastal Shimba Hills National Reserve to the much larger Tsavo East park about 150 kilometers farther inland. About 400 more pachyderms will be sent packing by Kenyan wildlife rangers. Kenyan wildlife officials say it's the world's largest-ever elephant relocation. About...

Sorry if this is a repost. Elephants and lions unleashed on North America? 18:00 17 August 2005 NewScientist.com news service Kurt Kleiner Elephants, lions, cheetahs and camels could one day roam the western US under a proposal to recreate North American landscapes as they existed more than 13,000 years ago, when humans first encountered them. The plan, proposed in a commentary in Nature and co-authored by 13 ecologists and conservation biologists, would help enrich a North American ecosystem that was left almost devoid of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene period. It would also help preserve wildlife that...

Chinese elephants are evolving into an increasingly tuskless breed because poaching is changing the gene pool, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Five to 10 percent of Asian elephants in China now had a gene that prevented the development of tusks, up from the usual 2 to 5 percent, the China Daily said, quoting research from Beijing Normal University. "The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," said researcher Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology. "Therefore, the ones without tusks survive, preserving the tuskless gene in the species." Since only male elephants...

PETA's silence, hypocrisy By: RICK REISS - For The Californian Zoos have always been popular with the public. My family and I are longtime members of the San Diego Zoological Society. A trip to the zoo is the best way to see up close wild and exotic animals from around the world. In just a day at the zoo, you can see critters from tropical rain forests to African savannas without risking exposure to Third World diseases and genocidal regimes. While no zoo is perfect, most are nonprofit organizations striving to preserve endangered species through care and captive breeding programs....

PRACHUAB KHIRI KHAN, May 8, (TNA) – For years, the sight of mahouts taking their elephants through urban areas in search of food and money has exasperated successive governments. But the solution to this and the illegal trade in elephants, according to the Wildlife Fund Thailand, could lie in new technology: DNA testing. As WFT secretary-general Mr. Suraphol Duangkhae points out, government directives have rarely been translated into action by local officials, who often lack the authority to solve the problem. What the WFT is now calling for is DNA tests on all young elephants in urban areas, particularly the...

(CNSNews.com) -- A liberal advocacy group is planning a week of rallies and protests - and a speech by former Vice President Al Gore - all blasting Republicans who want to eliminate Democrat filibusters of judicial nominees. As part of the effort to stop "radical Republicans" from taking "absolute control of the entire government," MoveOn.org's political action committee has unveiled a new TV ad featuring "lumbering" elephants eating federal court buildings. The ad says those "radical Republicans" are "planning to break the rules, eliminating checks and balances, to get more extremist judges approved." The Senate is expected to vote this...

FACED with worsening food shortages, president Robert Mugabe’s officials have resorted to killing elephants to pacify hungry Zimbabweans, it was claimed yesterday. Game rangers near the western resort town of Kariba were told to kill at least four elephants ahead of celebrations to mark Zimbabwe’s 25th anniversary of independence this week, said Johnny Rodrigues, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF). Elephant meat is not traditionally eaten by Zimbabweans but other kinds of meat are increasingly scarce in this once prosperous farming nation. Mr Mugabe used Monday’s independence celebrations to boast about Zimbabwe’s "enormous" achievements since independence in...