I recently watched a great segment of Wild Kingdom about Borneo's pygmy elephants. Of course, I know there are elephants in Asia, but didn't realize there were elephants in Borneo. Asian elephants in general are smaller than African elephants. And pygmy elephants, which live in both Africa and Asia, are even smaller because of the habitat they live in - the forest as a opposed to savanna. Smaller bodies make navigating around dense trees easier. Pygmy elephants also have narrower, longer heads, straighter tusks, and some are darker in color - all adaptations to their forest habitat.
The Borneo pygmies are a genetically distinct subspecies of the Asian elephant, having longer tails, bigger ears, and a very gentle nature. They also tend to live in smaller family groups. They are endangered with the population estimated at only about 1,000 individuals.
Not nearly as much is known about pygmy elephants as we know about their savanna cousins, mainly because they are harder to track. But World Wildlife officials are trying to remedy that, particularly with the Borneo pygmy elephants. A few years ago they were fitted with radio collars with GPS units in them so their movement could be documented. Like so many other species whose habitat is being fragmented by human development, the Borneo forests are slowly disappearing as they are being logged or cleared and converted to palm oil plantations.
One of the most interesting thing about elephants is how they communicate. Elephants have more than 70 vocalizations used to warn of predators, find other group members, coordinate travel, and care for their young. Elephants use infrasound - rumbles or grunts in frequencies lower than the human ear can hear - and can contact elephants many miles away. They also communicate with over 150 gestures or visual signals, as well as touch and smell, in order to get their point across and maintain social networks. Individuals will often touch each other when two herds meet, and seem to pay their respects when they come across an elephant that has died.
It would truly be a tragedy if we lost these Borneo treasures. To me there is nothing as cute as a baby elephant and nothing as stately and majestic as the matriarch of the herd.
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