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Reporting errors
Sri Lankan elephant
From
Sri Lankan elephant: Only 7% of males bear tusks.(ref= Jayewardene, J. (1994) The elephant in Sri Lanka. Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka, Colombo) However, according to the elephant census conducted in 2011 by the Wildlife Conservation Department of Sri Lanka, only 2% of the total population are tuskers.
From
Asian elephantSome males may also lack tusks... and are especially common among the Sri Lankan elephant population... (ref= Clutton-Brock, J. (1987). A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. London: British Museum (Natural History). p. 208.
ISBN0-521-34697-5.)
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Elephant. Please take a moment to review
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Should recognized "Tuskers" be included?
Around the world there are a couple of individual elephants known (and respected) for the exceptional size of the tusks. In nature reserves specifically these individuals are extremely popular, and actively sought out for photographs.
Could/should these be listed in a new section?
Sakkie Coetzee (
talk)
10:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)reply
Issues with "Evolution and extinct relatives" section
I have some issues with this section:
Platybelodon and other members of the family
Amebelodontidae are now generally not considered "gomphotheres" (as messy as that term is taxonomically).
The estimate placing Palaeoloxodon namadicus as the largest amimal of all time, it to put lightly, extremely speculative. As the paper itself notes, it's based on a single unlocated partial femur mentioned in an early 19th century publication as 20% larger than a measured femur. The paper itself notes that the estimate should be taken with a grain of salt.
Continues to refer to Palaeoloxodon recki as Elephas recki, which is inconsistent with the Wikipedia article on the animal, as well as recent scientific literaure on Palaeoloxodon
Overall, the section seems somewhat poorly organised for a featured article (though I appreciate it's not the main focus by any means). I'll probably get around to improving it in the coming days.
Hemiauchenia (
talk)
03:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)reply
No, but there's a half-decent cladogram in
this paper, but it has a number of problems, most notably that Stegodon is recovered within modern elephants, which is not found in basically any other phylogenetic analysis and I think is likely to be erroneous, so I'm not sure it would be usable.
Hemiauchenia (
talk)
00:26, 22 May 2023 (UTC)reply
Sure, I think adding Amebelodontidae would be a good idea. One current issue with the cladogram is is that "Gomphotheriidae" is widely agreed to be paraphyletic, so it might be worth representing them with two nodes (one closer to elephantids and stegodontids than the other node) with a combined label, as is done for example for the label of Maxiliopoda in the phylogeny section of the
Arthropoda article.
Hemiauchenia (
talk)
01:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)reply
I've managed to find another half-decent cladogram
[1], doesn't include the amebelodontids unfortunately, but does include most of the other taxa, and avoids
WP:SYNTH problems.
Hemiauchenia (
talk)
01:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)reply
Hemiauchenia, do you think the evolution section could be trimmed some and have more details at the Proboscidea? Perhaps the first paragraph could give an overview of Proboscidea pre-Elephantimorph. The second paragraph could start with Elephantimorphs and lead into Elephantidae and then talk about extinction.
LittleJerry (
talk)
23:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)reply
I think that the broad evolutionary history narrative in the first few paragraphs is as concise as it can reasonably be without losing coherence. I think the morphological evolution and dwarf elephant sections could be cut down though.
Hemiauchenia (
talk)
03:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)reply
^Cite error: The named reference evolution was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).
Elephants vs Elephantidae
I don’t understand why this article excludes extinct elephantids.
Pretty much every other article for a group of animals goes over some of its extinct and prehistoric members. I understand wanting to prioritize extant animals but you can do that without completely ignoring the taxon they belong to.
Maxwatermelon (
talk)
18:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)reply
No. The work is still clearly identifiable, though I would strongly prefer it include a year (this would prevent potential confusion with Shoshani 1998 and Shoshani 2005, even if they are cited using a different format). :3
F4U (
they/it)
17:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Semi-protected edit requestyes on 15 August 2023
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
elephants come from africa and they have very specific lifestyles compared to other animals and wildlife
Phoebe1322 (
talk)
21:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
elephants are a protected species and are from africa, they have a very specific life style compared to other animals and wildlifereply
My edits (
[2])
were reverted wholesale as unhelpful, unsourced and with barereflinks, which I don't believe is accurate.
I did remove this portion -- "This is due to them being largely immune to predators, which would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads" as it makes no sense and should be reviewed and reworded, in my opinion. Yours. Thanks.
Zenon.Lach (
talk)
04:52, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply
You have added unsourced content, and many of us regularly remove newly added unsourced content. The content you removed does make sense to me, and had a citation. If you think that the cited source does not support that statement, explain that here. You deleted that content and it has been restored, so the next step is to discuss on this talk page why you think that content does not belong in the article.
Donald Albury13:05, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply
With all due respect, the diff I provided (
[3]) re my two edits does not show any unsourced additions, IMO. Several new reflinks from reliable sources were added. I did some rewording for clarity, yes. And, "This is due to them being largely immune to predators, which would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads" is quite confusing, regardless of citation. I respectfully submit that less arcane wording would make this portion more comprehensible to the majority of readers. Also, the plural ("rhinoceroses") of rhinoceros should be used. Yours,
Zenon.Lach (
talk)
14:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply
My apologies, I thought I saw unsourced content added, but I was wrong. I do have trouble following the changes you have made in some places, where I think it looks like you have moved content from in front of one citation to in front of another citation. I still think is best to discuss the changes you want to make on this talk page.
Donald Albury14:42, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply
* "This is due to them being largely immune to predators, which would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads" -- should be reworded -- difficult to understand for us non-zoologists as written
* "rhinoceroses" (plural) not "rhinoceros"
* "They appear to have self-awareness, and possibly show concern for dying and dead individuals of their kind" -- remove "possibly". They are very aware of death and usually show concern for fellow pachyderms: mothers carry dead calfs, "bury" dead mates with sticks, herds sometimes seek vengeance, attracted to bones of their own kind, etc (see
[4]).
* "Gestation in elephants typically lasts between one and a half and two years" -- should be "African elephants have the longest gestation period in the animal kingdom, at 22 months. Asian female elephants carry pregnancy between 18 and 22 months" (see
[5])
Fully agree : this page has been subject to a lengthy peer-review process + does certainly not need newspaper articles as references. –
BhagyaMani (
talk)
18:27, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply
OK: How about these sources (
[6],
[7]) for this change:
* "They appear to have self-awareness, and possibly show concern for dying and dead individuals of their kind" -- remove "possibly". (They are very aware of death and usually show concern for fellow pachyderms: mothers carry dead calfs, "bury" dead mates with sticks, herds sometimes seek vengeance, attracted to bones of their own kind, etc.)
Zenon.Lach (
talk)
20:24, 17 May 2024 (UTC)reply