At Londolozi, elephants are a near-daily sight. Herds cross the Sand River or feed quietly among the marula trees, and their calls and rumbles often echo through the bush. It often gives the impression that elephants are thriving everywhere. Yet the story of elephants stretches far wider, both across continents and deep into time.

A herd of elephants amble their way across the Sand River.

The Three Living Species

Today, there are three living species: the African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana), the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The Londolozi elephants belong to the savannah species, the largest of them all, while their forest relatives inhabit Central and West Africa’s dense rainforests, and Asian elephants are scattered from India across Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

For many years, the African species were thought to be one and the same. It was only in the mid-2000s, through genetic and morphological studies, that scientists confirmed forest elephants as a distinct species. Their rounded ears, straighter tusks, smaller size, and more domed heads set them apart from their larger, more angular savannah cousins. Even their feet differ: forest elephants usually have five toenails on the front feet and four on the back, while savannah elephants typically have four and three.

Notice the very long straight tusks of the forest elephant, found in the rainforests of Central Africa.

Asian elephants, meanwhile, can be recognised by their smaller, more rounded ears, twin-domed heads, and smoother skin.

The colour differentiation, smaller ears, and twin-domed head is evident in this Asian elephant. Photograph by Avijja Fonseka

An Ancient Family Tree

All three belong to the family Elephantidae, which once included mammoths and mastodons. The woolly mammoth, which survived until just 4,000 years ago on a remote Arctic island, would have looked instantly familiar to us. Even further back, small semi-aquatic ancestors like Moeritherium hint at how trunks and tusks evolved. Surprisingly, elephants’ closest living relatives today are the rock hyrax, dugongs, and manatees—an unlikely kinship revealed in shared tooth patterns, skeletal features, and toenails. However, this being said, they are still very distantly related.

Although long lumped together, savanna and forest elephants were officially split into two species only in the early 2000s—genetic work shows they diverged around the same time humans split from chimpanzees, 2.5–5 million years ago.

Abundance and Fragility

In Africa today, savannah elephants number between 350,000 and 400,000, though many populations are fragmented. Forest elephants are far more vulnerable, with fewer than 100,000 left, while Asia’s elephants hover around 50,000. By contrast, here in the Sabi Sand and Greater Kruger, elephants are abundant, their numbers secure. In Botswana, herds continue to grow, demonstrating that where space and protection are available, elephants can thrive.

All lined up to drink, this was a recent photo of a herd coming down to a large waterhole for a drink. I love this black and white edit.

Behaviourally, savannah elephants are great architects of open landscapes, pushing over trees, opening thickets, and creating paths that many other animals use. Forest elephants play a different role, dispersing seeds deep in rainforests and shaping ecosystems that would look entirely different without them.

An Elephant uses her trunk to reach up to the sweeter leaves in the canopy of a Green Thorn Tree (Balanites Maughamii). With over 40,000–60,000 muscles and two “fingers” at the tip, an African elephant’s trunk is a precision instrument—and unlike its single-fingered Asian counterpart—can deftly pluck a single blade of grass.

Closer to home, South Africa still holds a solitary legend: a lone forest elephant in the Knysna forest of the Western Cape, the last of her kind in the region. Rarely glimpsed, she reminds us that abundance in one place can mask fragility in another.

The African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is a forest-dwelling elephant of the Congo Basin.

Although long lumped together, savanna and forest elephants were officially split into two species only in the mid-2000s—genetic work shows they diverged around the same time humans split from chimpanzees, approximately 2.5–5 million years ago. However, it was only in 2021 that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially recognised the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) as a distinct species from the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana). This changed their status to Critically Endangered, whereas the African savanna elephant became Endangered. 

One recent afternoon at Londolozi, a herd ambled slowly across the Sand River. A young calf, still finding its footing in the water, slipped and then scrambled after its mother—met with nothing more than a reassuring brush of her trunk. In moments like these, the long evolutionary tale of elephants becomes tangible: ancient giants still shaping landscapes and carrying forward a story far older than our own.