African forest elephant

Or for·est el·e·phant

[af-ri-kuhn fawr-ist el-uh-fuhnt, for-ist]

noun

1. the smaller of the two African elephant species (Loxodonta cyclotis ), found in small groups in the forested areas of the Congo Basin: compared to the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant has straighter, more downward-pointing tusks and smaller, more rounded ears: having been confirmed as a distinct species in 2010, the African forest elephant has a conservation status of not evaluated.

Word History and Origins

Origin of African forest elephant¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Without stronger controls, campaigners warn, hippos may share the fate of elephants, which have become endangered - or critically endangered in the case of the African forest elephant - because so many were killed by poachers for their tusks.

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The African forest elephant is critically endangered, and the African savanna elephant is endangered.

Read more on Seattle Times

The African Forest elephant isn’t even assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature or recognised by wildlife trade legislation.

Read more on The Guardian

But the net effect of lumping the two together is to significantly underestimate the vulnerability of the African forest elephant.

Read more on Nature

And that is: The largest land creatures on earth, slaughtered for trinkets, to the point where the African forest elephant could be extinct within a decade, according to Elizabeth Bennett, a species conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Read more on New York Times