Talk:Elephant/Archive 8

Where's the 2007 talk page comments?
I just looked at the archives and this articles history, and there arean't any comments from 2007. Any clue what happened to them. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Found them I think. There may be another archive of Colbert, though, I don't know.  Plus the December 31 GA Quick Fail isn't in the archive. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

An elephant never forgets
I would be great if this article could address the stereotype of elephants having colossal memory. Maikel (talk) 10:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC) Elephants are far more thoughtful mammals than their popular circus entertainer personas imply. In the wild, they follow formalized family structures with older females, or matriarchs, at the top. Daughter elephants always stick close with their mothers, forming families. Male offspring leave the family at around 14 years of age, or whenever they reach sexual maturity, described as being in musth. From there, males join groups of other male elephants, which they'll periodically leave for mating purposes. During droughts, multiple elephant families consisting of the females and their calves may congregate to form bond groups and share resources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Seditives (talk • contribs) 16:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seriously
This article claims that "In Africa, groups of young teenage elephants attack human villages in what is thought to be revenge for the destruction of their society by massive cullings done in the 1970s and 80s". Are we to believe that the elephants sat down and decided that 'hey, those humans were pretty mean 30 years ago, let's get back at them!'? I've removed this as I can't see an argument being made for elephants not only being able to have feelings such as revenge, but even to pass on that feeling to a younger generation. JdeJ (talk) 13:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I reverted your edit prior to seeing this talk item. I added a reference to similar material from the New York Times (Oct 2008). Apparently, this theory of the reason for the elephants' actions is being studied and is considered credible. Since the statement includes "what is thought to be..." I think that it is reasonable to include it in the article. The New Scientist and the NYT are good sources. Bob98133 (talk) 14:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I read the NYT article and it said nothing at all about elephants being out for "revenge". There's not the slightest proof to suggest than animals can have such feelings, not to mention pass them on. I won't start a revert war, but I hope others give their views as well. This idea makes this article, and Wikipedia, look ridiculous. JdeJ (talk) 21:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now read both sources and they are not sufficient. One of them, the NYT article, doesn't say a word about the elephants taking "revenge", it talks about other causes, such as disorientation among young elephants not raised by older elephants. As for New Scientist, it's not included in the sources, all we have is a secondary report about what the New Scientist may have said from the Sydney Morning Herald, and we don't know what the scientific article says and what the interpretation by some journalist is. I will wait untill tomorrow for a link showing that New Scientist indeed talks about elephants being after "revenge". If not, I will remove the claim as it cannot be substantiated by the sources in the article. JdeJ (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with you removing the "revenge" part, since there is not going to be any reliable proof of that. Perhaps you could leave in the part about them appearing to be disoriented because of absent elders - although that is probably speculation, as well. Elephant rampages and attacks appear to be more frequent - that can be documented - so that could stay in - and the speculation could be noted as such or simply said that the reason is unknown. Try your rewrite or edit and I'll get back to you on this page if I don't agree, rather than reverting or changing. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 16:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

--Mr Seditives (talk) 10:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

An elephant can predict tsunami
This is a cool, new fact i discovered. Many reports from southeast asian countries from tourists reported the elephants dashed to higher ground with the hitchhikers on their back shortly before the great boxing day asian tsunami took place. Even the documentary "The most extreme" had mentioned it before.

Is it really true? Any facts or stuff to prove this is true? I'm pretty curious in this. If so, maybe this can add value greatly to the giants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.93.30 (talk) 07:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like the regular level of post-disaster "you wouldn't believe it, but..." type of stuff. That said, I do remember seeing a general report (on Discovery Channel, I believe) about how sometimes animals will react to a coming earthquake before it's readily apparent. This could be akin to that sort of phenomenon, but that's a bit of a stretch to make (and we'd need to have some hard evidence before we could even think about mentioning it in the article itself). EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 08:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Since the article is already claiming that the elephants not only have such feelings as revenge but also a language/means of communication advanced enough to pass on such feelings to new generations, I wouldn't be surprised to see this article say that groups of concerned elephants had petitioned governments before the tsunami to warn them... JdeJ (talk) 08:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This is amazing!!! from 203.126.93.30 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.93.30 (talk) 08:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, JdeJ, I don't agree that including the referenced item about elephants seeking revenge logically leads to them petitioning governments about tsumanis. While I have heard that elephants reacted to the Asian tsunami, that information is not nearly sufficiently documented to include as fact, since it is merely speculation. I suspect that research may be going on about this, so perhaps there will be a scientific answer someday. The revenge/rampage articles I read indicated that the phenomenon had been studied for a long time, and backed up with statistics. The only leap is ascribing this new behavior to "revenge", but that was done by scientists, not Wiki editors. Bob98133 (talk) 15:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it wasn't. At least we don't know if it was. The article you're refering to is an article by the Sydney Morning Herald, not the New Scientist. JdeJ (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Everyone has heard about the Indian Parliament recognising a delegation of Asian elephants, and allowing them to establish a consulate in India, right? But maybe we should let the elephants add that material themselves. User:Pedant (talk) 21:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you know how long it takes to type with those feet? ZS 18:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Everyone has also heard that the population of elephants in Africa has tripled in the last six months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.213.220.205 (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

elephants are more than they appear
elephants are known to feel death, sorrow, or hurting, whether it be from another elephant or''' its self. Elephants are beloved animals and should have been a national animal for a country.''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.164.58 (talk) 16:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Goat sized elephant?
Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B23F2P_9xo8 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.189.46 (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I was watching the BBC Documentary Earth-The Power of The Planet (oceans episode) and the narrator talked about Sicilian elephants that were the size of a goat. I think that should be included in this article.
 * Dwarf elephant
 * This article should be hyper linked in the part of the article that talks about dwarfism. 06:51, 7 March 2009 User:146.245.249.238

"An elephant never forgets"
Do elephants have very good memory? Well, we often here the idea "An elephant never forgets." Whatever this is, it should be explained in the article. 210.4.121.212 (talk) 13:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The article notes that they have good memories. I think that it might be difficult to present any references for long-term memory in elephants just because the research has not been done. There are dozens of anecdotal stories to support this, but they are not scientifically supported, so don't make great references. If you can find something, please add it. Bob98133 (talk) 15:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Links to PubMed
Hi guys,

proposing link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=DetailsSearch&Term=%22Elephants%22%5BMajr%5D+AND+%22loattrfree+full+text%22%5Bsb%5D

Major topic "Elephants": free full-text articles in National Library of Medicine

It will help to gather more reliable material on the animalsBa dust (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Elephant Speed
This article states that "elephants can reach speeds up to 40 km/h (25 mph)" with a citation that links to an article entitled "Are fast moving elephants really running?"

However the main conclusion of this article is that the history study of elephant locomotion is muddled, and full of innaccurate speed measurements. There is no measurement which the article lends any credit to, and in fact it throws significant doubt on a figure as high as 40km/h. I wonder therefore why this figure, which happens to be approximately the highest of many mentioned in this article, and all of which are described as being unreliable, has been picked and reported as if it were accepted scientific fact for this encyclopedic article?

I think at the very least a note on the lack of reliable speed measurements of elephants should be included, and perhaps the quoted figure should be removed as it is patently unreliable.

Kevoreilly (talk) 17:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This item from Stanford University mentions an article in Nature giving a top speed of 15 mph for elephants. It would be nice if someone can look at the issue of Nature in question and cite it if appropriate. -- Donald Albury 18:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This article says: "To investigate the gait used by elephants at top speeds, we used video analysis to study 42 healthy, active Asian elephants throughout Thailand "

And in the middle they give the following results: "Of the elephants, 32 reached top speeds of over 4.0 m /s, 20 exceeded 5.0 m/sec, and three attained speeds greater than 6.0 m/sec." They also ask this question: "The fastest gait used by elephants has been variously described as a walk, amble, trot, pace, rack or a running walk1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but — given that these speeds are relatively fast — how well does this gait of the fastest elephants fit the definitions of running?" This question has little to do with the top speed question. Ba dust (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

African elephant population
I reverted this edit to the African elephant section because it was unsourced. Since I am not a regular editor to this article I am inviting other editors to review my edit and make any correction necessary. Regards  Tide  rolls  00:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not only unsourced, it's Stephen Colbert meatpuppet crap (similar to Warren G. Harding vandalism). Block on sight. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 00:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick action, Jamie  Tide  rolls  00:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I'm new here but quite obsessed with elephants, especially since the miraculous birth of Pathi Harn at Taroonga Zoo in Sydney in 10 March 2010 and his playmate Luk Chai on 4 July 2009 (both Asian Elephants with Thai family history). I was doing some research and have discovered that there are actually three possible distinct elephant species / sub species in Africa - the Savannah Elephant, the Forest Elephant and the West African Elephant. DNA testing by scientists from San Diego University (reference to follow) indicates that the West African Elephant has been diverging from the other African elephants for approximately 2 million years. It is also the smallest population of African elephants (12,000 in 2002) and there are none in zoos (which usually take the Savannah Elephants, of which there are 200-350,000 also as of 2002 - can someone update these stats?).

I think it is important to mention the third species of African elephant as distinct from the others. Here's a link to my source at San Diego Uni (ucsd) School of Biology. . (Not sure if that ref is showing up properly.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kitty346 (talk • contribs) 11:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Bolding of Elephantidae in lede
and I disagree over whether the family name Elephantidae should be bolded in the lede of the article (see User talk:Donald Albury for our discussion). As this is a dispute over the interpretation of the guidance at Lead section and Manual of Style (text formatting) and could apply at other articles, I am requesting input from other editors to resolve the disagreement. I will post notice of this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Lead section, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life. -- Donald Albury 09:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I find the interpretation of the MoS to be rather unambiguous in the manner. This is an article about Elephantidae and Elephantidae should be bolded upon first usage.  The article would be completely valid having a title of Elephantidae, but elephant is the common usage.  It is also the convention for ToL articles.  --Aranae (talk) 12:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Since Elephantidae redirects here, it seems clear to me that the term should be bolded in the lede.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I concur with the above. I don't find the use of multiple bolded items in the lead distracting or awkward. It informs the reader that this is another valid name. And as far as I know, this is common practice for ToL projects (Plants moreso than Animals, I believe, as there are a few folks there who agree with you - see an existing archived discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life/Archive25). Rkitko (talk) 14:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * If elephant is a strict synonym with Elephantidae, then yes. I've never exactly considered a mammoth, for instance, to be an elephant, but I'm not an expert on elephantids.  However, in the case of Lepidoptera, butterfly and moth are not strict synonyms, as they only refer to some lepidopterans, so I wouldn't recommend bolding them.  Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 17:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * As I browse List of elephant species, it appears the taxonomical synonym for elephant is Elephantini, not Elephantidae. Belodons, stegodons, and lophodons certainly weren't elephants. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 17:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As a frequent debater on matters of common names in WP:BIRD, I feel I should point out that common names have a variety of meanings and that there is rarely an exact one to one synonymy. For example petrel can mean all the Procellariiformes, all the Procellariiformes except the albatrosses and all the Procellariidae except the shearwaters. I've certainly heard of mammoths and stegodons referred to as elephants before. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  19:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't argue with that...we do assign several definitions to the same word quite frequently. Therefore, can the word elephant be used to describe all members of Elephantidae, extinct and extant? Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 19:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The literature seems to be inconsistent. A search of stegodon+elephant generates a bunch of hits on Google scholar that describe stegodons as elephants, and I can also find papers that take a more narrow definition. I'm no expert, but I have some colleagues who work on elephants, I'll ask them today at work. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  20:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I look forward to the answer. If they're Wikipedians, they might deserve a Your Opinion is More Important than You Think Barnstar for their helpful answer which could resolve this debate... Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 21:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The question this all pertains to is whether Elephantidae should redirect to Elephant. If it shoudn't, that should be fixed and the term unbolded. If it should, the term should remain bold. To me, it's as simple as that.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it's that simple. We often redirect names without an article to a related article. A redirect does not require synonymy. There may be a question of whether all species in Elephantidae are commonly called 'elephants', which I am not qualified to judge. I am more interested in clarification of what should be bolded in the lede of an article, and I don't think that should hinge on whether or not a term is redirected to the article. -- Donald Albury 15:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * How else does a reader redirected from Elephantidae know why they ended up where they did?--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't follow. I suspect most readers are not aware that bolding per se means synonymy. It is obvious when bolded synonyms immediately follow the article title in the lead sentence. I think the relationship is less obvious when a synonym (or near synonym) is bolded in a later sentence. Nevertheless, I think the issue here is finding a consensus on how the guidelines apply to this issue, which (barring a sudden influx of editors agreeing with me) looks to be for bolding Elephantidae. -- Donald Albury 11:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It is Wikipedia convention that bold in the lede indicates alternate titles aka printworthy redirects. Readers who reach the article via one of these redirect are helped by this small sign that they are in the right place.  Curtis is correct, the real question is should  redirect to Elephant.  --Una Smith (talk) 13:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Because the redirect would need changed if we find elephant not to be synonymous with Elephantidae, the real question is their synonymy, not the redirect. Indeed, once the debate is over, we will need to update the redirect accordingly if any change is made, and possibly create a separate article on Elephantidae.


 * Sunbird, did you ask your colleagues yet? Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 16:41, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * They weren't in, and now they are away for a conference for a week. With regards to the whole redirect/ thing - the focus of this entire article is very much on the extant three species. Little effort is made to put them in the wider elephant context. The article clearly uses the more narrow definition -so it may very well be worth having Elephantidae not as a redirect but as an article that covers the entire family. At which point we need to actually decide where the family boundaries lie! Proboscidea has Elephantidae as one of several elephant families, List of elephant species lumps them all into one. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  21:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The reader is taken by the lead;
 * Elephant (disambiguation) — An elephant is a large, grey mammal (from Africa and southern Asia), whose population has tripled in the last 5 years.
 * Eh?


 * Elephant — Elephants are large land mammals of the order Proboscidea and the family Elephantidae. Three species of elephant are living today: ...
 * Plural, then an unlicensed premise, but closer. How about something like...
 * Elephant is a common name for a large mammal with tusks and a trunk, especially the African Elephants and Asian or Indian Elephants, and for many extinct members of Proboscidea and Elephantidae.
 * It may refer to some ranks within the 'elephant family', the species, subspecies and types are distinguished, sometimes ambiguously, by geographic, ecological or morphological modifiers to the name, eg. Indian Elephant, African Forest Elephant, Dwarf elephant!?
 * It generally refers to whichever member of Loxodonta and Elephas someone is: pointing at, running from, shooting, eating, describing, mounting for war, mounting for the drawing-room, mentally dressing in pyjamas, or cursing for eating their crop.
 * It may refer to several animals deeply implanted in the culture and history of many peoples, when translated into English, and has a wider application in a figurative sense.
 * It refers to a large animal with tusks and a trunk, although our lead does not.
 * It has been retroactively applied to extinct taxa.
 * It is a source of ivory and umbrella stands.
 * It is the largest terrestial mammal.
 * It is merely a common name, the article wedded to it is a large, grey lump of pachyderm facts. This is the elephant in the room, the elephantine obstacle to a reader seeking facts from, or an editor seeking to improve, the miasma of related articles.


 * Elephant -> Elephant classification -> List of elephant species
 * Fouling the nest, obviously, with a mammoth-sized ***.
 * BTW, the list currently places african elephants in Loxodon, a genus of sharks.


 * Merge: List of elephant species and relevant cited or verifiable content, here and elsewhere, to Elephantidae. — cygnis insignis 06:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks to cygnis insignis for pointing these out. I reverted the Colbertism from Elephant (disambiguation) (where it had sat since June 16). I see that Proboscidea places the Mammoths and Mastodons in Mammutidae, a family parallel to Elephantidae. Arghh! Looks like we need a little project to clean this stuff up. -- Donald Albury 11:01, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * After looking at Proboscidea again, I saw I had misread it. So, are mastodons 'elephants' (Elephantidae) or not (Mammutidae)? -- Donald Albury 12:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Mastadons are always their own family, it is just that one list has the stegodons as a separate family and the other as a subfamily. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  20:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I know, I stated that wrong. So, trying to be more clear, are mammoths elephants? are mastodons? I know there is a common tendency to mix up mammoths and mastodons. I've also seen archaeologists using "mammoth" and "mastodon" interchangeably with "elephant". I'm looking right now at an index with the entry, "Elephant. See Elephas columbi (elephant); Mammoth; Mastodon."(Purdy, Barbara A. (2008) Florida's People During the Last Ice Age. University of Florida Press.) -- Donald Albury 21:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, if you define "elephant" as being any member of the family Elephantidae, then, no, mastodons are not elephants. If you define "elephant as being any member of the order Proboscidea, then yes, mastodons are elephants, though, personally, I'd prefer to refer to mastodons as proboscideans.--Mr Fink (talk) 23:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Elephants are effectively hairless and their natural ranges are tropical, while mastodons and mammoths were heavily pelted. Diet must have been very different too.  To me, "elephant" refers to just the three extant species and perhaps the very closest fossil or sub fossil relatives.  "Elephant family" equals Elephantidae, not Elephant.  Here is an idea;  move Elephant (disambiguation) to Elephant and on the dab page list the individual elephant articles. --Una Smith (talk) 01:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No need to go that far. Despite the fact that elephant can mean any of the family Elephantidae, the usage in the article, restricted to the three extant species, is what people would be expecting - it is the primary usage. I think that a separate page for Elephantidae is highly desirable though. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  01:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * We don't have the privilege of defining "elephant". Either we find a reliable source or we find decent evidence of what common usage is. As for sources, many on-line dictionaries include (in various wordings) extinct animals related to elephants as a secondary meaning of "elephant", which isn't much use to us. It seems to me that "elephant" is a rather fuzzy term, hard to pin down in a strict sense. I think Sabine's Sunbird is right, the Article Elephant should be about the living species, but we need better coverage of other "elephants". -- Donald Albury 11:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have posted the requested move of List of elephant species to, here. --Una Smith (talk) 23:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any justification to label a taxon above family level as "Elephants". That's viable in publications which cover only extant taxa but otherwise it should be reserved for Elephantidae or a lower taxon. McKenna & Bell (1997) apply "Elephants" to their Elephantini which includes Primelephas, Loxodonta, Mammuthus and Elephas. It is the crown group of the two extant genera. -- Torben Schink (talk) 07:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I've always thought of Elephantini as the elephant taxon, but this may be just a common name that doesn't really match up with any particular taxon, sort of like vegetable...how do you know if a plant is a vegetable? And even better...I love how the True oyster basically defines a "true oyster" as anything that we call an oyster.  Socrates would have a cow.  Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 17:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * We have the exactly the same problem with so many Wikipedia articles about taxonomic groups of animals where the page name is a vernacular name and no consensus has been reached re what that vernacular name refers to: family, genus, species, or domesticated members of the species.  Cow, Cattle, Horse, and Wild horse are just a few examples that come to mind.  These articles tend to be, as Bob says, grab bags of anything and everything that might be called "foo".  --Una Smith (talk) 03:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * At least we don't have 40 "common" names in English for Loxodonta and Elephas, like we do for Puma, oops, now at Cougar. Here is an old discussion on the problems of matching common names to scientific taxonomies. -- Donald Albury 10:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Elephantidae no longer redirects to this article. --Una Smith (talk) 04:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)