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Show Sunday, October 30, 1994 THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah, - PageJM Genetic evidence debunks African vcimv eleiahante By DONALD J. FREDERICK For AP Special Features years ago, and the two are suffi- of pygmy elephants deep forests of Africa have persisted since the turn of the century. A team of German zoologists, after examining some elephant skulls from central Africa as recently as 1989, concluded that a Lilliputian version of the world's largest land Stories in the animal existed. Alas, it's only a myth, Nicholas J. Georgiadis, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, concluded after examining DNA samples from more than 67 forest elephants, including three supposed pygmies. Georgiadis, a native of Kenya, has obtained skin samples from about 450 forest and savanna elephants in various parts of Africa over the past 4 years. He gets his samples by using a small gun that shoots a painless dart into an elephant's skin and, Mien bounces out, bearing a small biopsy. The genetic evidence shows that the miniatures, averaging less than 6 feet at the shoulder, are simply immature forest elephants. "In all cases, they were young adolescent forest males with long tusks that made them appear adult, and not a separate species or subspecies," Georgiadis says. "There's evidence for only one type of elephant in Africa's rain forests," he says. "The forest elephant lineage diverged from savanna elephants about 3 million BORN AT AMERICAN FORK Aug. 2Si Boy to LaMonte HOtPITALl and Callae Wilcox ciently distinct to warrant inde'' pendent conservation status The findings are "surprising and very important," says Richard F. Barnes, a University of California, San Diego, biologist who has worked extensively in Africa. "You expected to find some difference that would explain why you had these funny little animals running around." Even the largest adult forest elephants are smaller than their savanna relatives, grasslands majestic giants that have become a symbol of Africa. A forest bull has a shoulder height of about 9 feet, compared with 13 feet for a savan. na bull. many as 100 elephants there of various sizes and shapes. It's noisy, too, sort of like a big ele'' phant cocktail party . Surprisingly, even though the reserve is near the transition zone between forest and savanna, none of the animals Georgiadis tested there proved to be savanna elephants, even though some looked a discomfort," Barnes explains. "If you have limited funds, then you are under tremendous pressure to produce results in a given period, and it's much more difficult to do in the forest." All this is changing. One of Georgiadis' colleagues, biologist Andrea Turkalo of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York Forest elephants have smaller, more rounded ears than the savanna animals. Their tusks are straight or point downward; savannas' are twice as long and curve up. Although forest types make up about a third of the 600,000 elephants left on the continent, knowledge about them is relatively new. A lot of myths, such as the pygmy one, surround forest elephants, because they are hard to observe and nobody has studied them for long periods until recently, Georgiadis says. Few have been counted directly; researchers have made estimates based on droppings and other signs. "The main reason was cost and bit like them. The same pattern held true for forest elephants in Gabon, on Africa's west coast. Their mitochondrial DNA genes inherited from the mother was distinctly different from that of the savanna elephants. The genetic preference for differing habitats has also led to dif-- City, has been studying the elusive beasts in the Central African Republic for more than three years. One of her favorite viewing spots is a clearing around an elephant water hole deep in the Dzanga-Sangh- a reserve. "They start accumulating dur- ing the day," says Georgiadis, "and by evening there may be as ferences in behavior. Forest ele- phants generally congregate in smaller bands, and they eat more fruits and broad-lea- f foliage, than their savanna counterparts. "A single male has to work much harder to find receptive females in the forest than he does in, the savanna," says Georgiadis.;; whose work has been supported by the National Geographic Society. "Individual forest males probably. don't sire as many offspring as-their counterparts in the more open spaces." 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