Brief Summary
provided by EOL authors
The taxonomic classification of African elephants has long been the subject of debate. While some recognize only a single living species of African elephant, Loxodonta africana (Debruyne 2005), others argue that the African bush elephant and African forest elephant are distinct genetic lineages that should be recognized as separate species, Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis respectively (Grubb et al. 2000, Roca et al. 2001, Rohland et al. 2007, 2010).