Elephant
In 2008, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60–75 years while CITES lists the species under Appendix I. Asian elephants once ranged from Syria and Iraq (the subspecies "Elephas maximus asurus"), to China (up to the Yellow River) and Java. It is now extinct in these areas, and the current range of Asian elephants is highly fragmented. The total population of Asian elephants is estimated to be around 40,000–50,000, although this may be a loose estimate. It is likely that around half of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats appears to be increasing.
Elephant
Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus first described the genus "Elephas" and an elephant from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) under the binomial "Elephas maximus" in 1758. In 1798, Georges Cuvier classified the Indian elephant under the binomial "Elephas indicus". Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck described the Sumatran elephant in 1847 under the binomial "Elephas sumatranus". English zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1940. Asian elephants vary geographically in their colour and amount of depigmentation. The Sri Lankan elephant ("Elephas maximus maximus") inhabits Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant ("E. m. indicus") is native to mainland Asia (on the Indian subcontinent and Indochina), and the Sumatran elephant ("E. m. sumatranus") is found in Sumatra. One disputed subspecies, the Borneo elephant, lives in northern Borneo and is smaller than all the other subspecies. It has larger ears, a longer tail, and straighter tusks than the typical elephant. Sri Lankan zoologist Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described it in 1950 under the trinomial "Elephas maximus borneensis", taking as his type an illustration in "National Geographic". It was subsequently subsumed under either "E. m. indicus" or "E. m. sumatranus". Results of a 2003 genetic analysis indicate its ancestors separated from the mainland population about 300,000 years ago. A 2008 study found that Borneo elephants are not indigenous to the island but were brought there before 1521 by the Sultan of Sulu from Java, where elephants are now extinct.