Largest Elephants in Sri Lanka | Swamp Elephants
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- Colonial hunters from the early 1900s mentioned a 'large breed' of elephants in the region of Thamankaduwa in Sri Lanka. Known as 'Swamp Elephants', they were quite different from 'normal' elephants. But did they go extinct or are they still alive?
Elephant Foot Image by Aotaro [pxhere.com/en/photo/266760?ut...]
Elephant Tracks Image by Shankar S. Licensed Under CC BY 2.0 (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...)
#srilanka #srilankanelephant #elephant #documentary #wildlifedocumentary #history #nature #elephantsofsrilanka #srilankaelephants
I was lucky to measure a foot print of Sri Lanka's largest known living elephant tusker Kavantissa. It measured 63 inches in circumference. The footprint was on hard ground therefore the footprint was not distorted and made to look larger if it was on a muddy surface. I was also able to confirm his height of 10'9" when his head touched a branch.
Asian elephants are elephants that constitute the genus Elephas, they are an exclusively asiatic genus with only fourteen recognized species: the †Syrian Elephant (Elephas asurus), the Indian Elephant (Elephas indicus), the Sri Lanka Elephant (Elephas maximus), the †Chinese Elephant (Elephas rubridens), the †Falconer's Elephant (Elephas hysudricus), the †Flat-Headed Elephant (Elephas platycephalus), the Bangladeshi Elephant (Elephas bangladeshiensis), the Indochinese Elephant (Elephas vietnamensis), the Sumatran Elephant (Elephas sumatrensis), the †Javan Elephant (Elephas sondaicus), the †Blora Elephant (Elephas hysudrindicus), the Bornean Elephant (Elephas borneensis), the †Beyer's Elephant (Elephas beyeri), and the †Sulawesi Dwarf Elephant (Elephas celebensis), asian elephants originated from Southwest Asia following their split between the mammoths (genus Mammuthus).
Beautiful scenery. No fluff. Packed with facts hard to find elsewhere.
Thanks!
Wonderful, Recently read face book post regarding 2 domesticated elephants which were captured in( Yakkure, close proximity in Thamankaduwa ) wild around at 1930. As per that post both of them grew up to 12 feet.( One elephant name Neela(නීලා) and other one was kondadeniye elephant(කොන්ඩදෙනියේ අලියා). However the measurements might be over estimated, Neela once accpted as the tallest elephant in Sri Lanka.
Thanks - interesting to know that they reached 12 feet. Supposedly the tallest elephant was shot by E.L.Walker in the early 1900s, but that elephant was around 10 feet (I think the skull is in the Musuem).
Thank you for this. Amazing to learn more.
I Like these kind of videos
Most scientist also consider Bardiya elephants as the largest Asian elephants, but its a Western Terai race and not a different subspecies frm the Mainland Asia
Like Raja Gaj
good info 👍
Thank you!
Wow ❤️🔥❤️🔥
One of a disgusting thing that done colonials to the ceylon.😞😞😞😞😞😞
"Waliga kota" (වලිග කොටා) Was the name of the elephant who killed Eric Swan & lived in "Meena Villuwa", one of the Villu ecosystems in Eastern Province. " Villu elephant" is an another name for marsh elephants in Srilanka.
Thank you for sharing this valuable information...❤️
Thanks for the info!
අනිවාර්යයෙන් වලිග කොටා තමා
There is a picture which shows the comparison of normal elephant skull and Thamankaduwa elephant skull but the latter is actually the size of the normal Asian elephant skull. The Asian elephant has a large skull, despite being somewhat smaller than the African elephant in body size. So the skull of a 10 feet tall Asian elephant certainly is bigger than the skull picture seen in the video. I've been to a musuem once and saw a bull Asian elephant skeleton, they mentioned that it was 11 feet tall including flesh but for me it doesn't seem to be true. I took shots of it with myself and later measured them in my pc and i noted that it was either average sized or slightly a big individual, perhaps 9.5 feet but it was nowhere close to 11 feet. There were indeed few large Asian elephant subspecies existed before, like the Syrian elephants which is generally mentioned as 11.6 feet in height.
wow superb
Thanks!
The psychological profile of elephant killers, either modern or colonial times, is something we should study. The sickness of a mind that get some sick gratification from killing a massive majestic animals says a lot about self esteem.
good video ☺️❤
Thank you!
As I am a wildlife veterinary surgeon have done postmorteum of a 'Makana' 58 inches circumferance of the fore leg[ that's the pad area. That's the biggest I have done.
These ‘larger’ elephants may have been individual outliers, rather than the norm. Sometimes, the size of these ‘swamp elephants’ may have been an error or exaggeration… thx for your input!
Are there paleoloxodon fossils in Sri Lanka?
Several extinct elephant species were discovered in Sri Lanka, but I don’t think paleoloxodon was one of them. But since the paleoloxodon is a tusker, there maybe a relation because Asian elephants are more closely related to the extinct mammoth.
We do have paleoloxodon namaticas fossils in india, so I will not be surprised if they also inhabited shri Lanka
@Aegle Creations, correct, asian elephants (genus Elephas) are more closely related to mammoths (genus Mammuthus) than to african elephants (genus Loxodonta), in addition to the straight-tusked elephants (genus Palaeoloxodon) being more closely related to both asian elephants and mammoths than to african elephants, whereas african elephants are more basal, while the four-tusked elephants were the only known elephantine elephants to have evolved before african elephants, like african elephants, four-tusked elephants were found only in Africa, this is because elephants first appeared in Africa before appearing anywhere else in the world, as have all other proboscideans, hence the name of the superorder that elephants and all other proboscideans belong to, which is Afrotheria, Afrotheria includes the proboscideans and other lineages considered fairly similar to them such as manatees, dugongs, hyraxes, aardvarks, elephant shrews, tenrecs, otter shrews, and golden moles.
These elephants may have been called elephants of the saddantha family.🤔
It is strange that Sri Lankan elephants would be larger than their counterparts on the mainland as it goes against Foster's rule, which states that megafaunal species get smaller in island habitats. Proboscidians such as elephants usually follow this biological rule very closely.
Well... You know it depends , in some case we see insular gigantism.. in which animals grow in size massively in islands and isolated locations due to more food... But the opposite may happen as insular Dwarfism as the animals shrink in size due to lack of food.. like Sicilian dwarf elephants.
But if I am not wrong..the largest asian elephants are from Nepal and assam
Fosters rule is arbitrary as gigantism and dwarfism can go both ways depending on a number of factors in isolated island environments.
I'm wondering to myself why are you interested in sri lanka
Why not? We are a Sri Lankan channel, so we focus on local topics.
@@AegleCreations I love the content narration is great, I just wanted to know why such a high production quality for wild life in this country the viewership is small, I see that your team loves nature but is that enough to keep you'll moving foward, money matters right I guess youtube doesn't get you all that much, so where do you'll really profit or you'll get sponsors to, I'm a retired wildlife photographer that's why, good luck anyways
what a sad way to put it, instead of being happy about these people who go above and beyond to document your own country and bring it to an international audience, you’re asking them to focus on something else 🤦🏽♂️
Good the elephant killed the photographer because due to his negligence the elephant got spooked then he shot at him. One can easily take pictures of elephants from far as elephants have poor eyesight
Very true!