Community Lens for Sept. 21

Linda McNay submitted this photo, but didn’t give information about the elephants. One may deduce from the background that these are African elephants, but according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there’s an easier way to distinguish African elephants from Asian elephants. In 2000, scientists recategorized the African elephant species into two distinct species, the larger being the African savanna elephant and the smaller being the African forest elephant. While the two African species are about as genetically different as tigers and lions, they still have more features in common with one another than with their Asian counterpart, and it’s important to know how to tell the difference. Asian and African elephants can be differentiated most easily by their ears, their head shape, and their tusks. The easiest way to distinguish African elephants from Asian elephants is to look at the ears. African elephants have much larger ears that look sort of like the continent of Africa, while Asian elephants have smaller, round ears.