Talk:Asian elephant

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Asian elephant has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: May 21, 2024. (Reviewed version).

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Secondary opening paragraph needs source

"Asian elephants have a large and well-developed neocortex of the brain, are highly intelligent and self-aware being able to display behaviors associated grief, learning, greeting etc."

No source on this, article protected so can't add the tag but, still. Needs a source. Self-awareness among animals still disputed and prone to human anthropomorphism (see: Derek C. Penn and Daniel J. Povinelli 2007) so a source for the claim would be appropriate.

Magpiesmeanstoeuphoria (talk) 13:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are no sources in the lead, as you can clearly see. So if you are looking for a source, then I suggest you check the intelligence section. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 16:15, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

contradictory info on life spans, corrected

'Reproduction' section said: "Average elephant life expectancy is 60 years in the wild and 80 in captivity, although this has been exaggerated in the past."

The '80' number is incorrect and contradicts text in the 'In Captivity' section below that has a more scientifically valid source (ie. "About half of the global zoo elephant population is kept in European zoos, where they have less than half (18.9 years) the median life span of conspecifics (41.6 years) in protected populations in range countries.").

So, I edited 'Reproduction' text to: "Average elephant life expectancy is approximately 60 years in the wild, less in captivity." AMF Tribble (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that claim that they have a longer lifespan in captivity on average appears to be erroneous. However it does appear to be true that the oldest recorded individuals of the species are known from captivity, even if they represent extreme outliers compared to the lifespan distribution of captive Asian elephants. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've read that elephants rarely live past 60 because that is the age at which their last emergent set of teeth have worn down so far that they can no longer effectively chew the vegetation that is their normal food. If an elephant in captivity has been primarily fed softer food for much of their life, their teeth might last longer, but almost 30 years longer is hard to believe. Donald Albury 16:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]