Borneo's pygmy elephant last survivor: WWF

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Leading conservation group WWF said Borneo's mysterious pygmy elephants might be the last survivors of the now-extinct Javan elephants.

Research by the WWF found no archaeological evidence of a long-term elephant presence on Borneo.

"Just one fertile female and one fertile male elephant, if left undisturbed in a good enough habitat, could in theory end up as a population of 2,000 elephants within less than 300 years," WWF's Junaidi Payne, who co-authored the paper "Origins of the Elephants Elephas Maximus", said Thursday.

"And that may be what happened here."

The paper says the Borneo pygmy elephants have smaller bodies than mainland Asian elephants. The Borneo male elephants may grow to less than 2.5 meters while Asian elephants can reach up to three meters.

The Borneo elephants also have "babyish" faces, larger ears, longer tails that reach almost to the ground and are more rotund. They are also less aggressive than other Asian elephants.

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