快猫短视频

A TRULY huge star at a French zoo seems to have confirmed what some
zoologists have long suspected: there are three species of elephant, not
two.

Coco the elephant, who resides at Vincennes Zoo in Paris, and his relatives
living in Africa鈥檚 forests are genetically different enough from their savannah
cousins to be classed as a separate species alongside the Asian elephant, say
researchers at the Natural History Museum in Paris.

For many years, some zoologists have speculated that this might be the case.
African forest elephants tend to be stockier than savannah elephants and also
have straighter tusks and rounder ears.

But no one has ever confirmed the theory. So molecular biologists at the
museum turned to Coco, who is the last surviving forest elephant in European
zoos. They first tested DNA from his mitochondria鈥攖he maternally inherited
energy-providing structures found in cells.

To their surprise, preliminary results showed that Coco鈥檚 mitochondria differ
from those of savannah elephants as much as they do from an Asian elephant鈥檚.
Their latest research, which they are preparing to submit for publication, shows
that differences of a similar magnitude also exist between the animals鈥� nuclearDNA.

鈥淭he difference suggests that we probably have got two species of elephant in
Africa,鈥� says team member V茅ronique Barriel. 鈥淭he results are very
important for conservation reasons, because the forest elephant is so rare.鈥�

Elephant expert Nick Ellerton of Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool says
that forest elephants are clearly very different, but more individuals need to
be tested to confirm that they are a separate species. This is what Barriel and
her colleagues now plan to do.