The Javan elephant (''Elephas maximus sondaicus'') was proposed by Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala in 1953, based on an

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video ...

of a

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and ...

on the Buddhist monument of

Borobudur Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur ( id, Candi Borobudur, jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indone ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

. He thought that the

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus '' Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in t ...

(''Elephas maximus'') had indeed existed on the island and had gone extinct. It may be considered

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

with the

Sumatran elephant The Sumatran elephant (''Elephas maximus sumatranus'') is one of four recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant, and native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In 2011, IUCN upgraded the conservation status of the Sumatran elephant from endang ...

(''E. maximus sumatranus''). Fossils of the Asian elephant have been found in

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

deposits on Java. The question of when elephants became extinct on Java is unsettled. Chinese chronicles contemporary with the period of Hindu influence in Java recorded that Javan kings rode on elephants, and that Java exported ivory to China. As elephants were, at least occasionally, transported by ship, it is possible that the elephants in Java during the period of Hindu influence had been imported from India. A tradition in the northeastern part of

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

holds that the

Borneo elephant The Borneo elephant, also called the Bornean elephant or the Borneo pygmy elephant, is a subspecies of Asian elephant ''(Elephas maximus)'' that inhabits northeastern Borneo, in Indonesia and Malaysia. Its origin remains the subject of debate. ...

s that currently live in the wild there, and the elephants that formerly lived in the wild on the neighboring island of

Sulu Sulu (), officially the Province of Sulu ( Tausūg: ''Wilāya sin Lupa' Sūg''; tl, Lalawigan ng Sulu), is a province of the Philippines in the Sulu Archipelago and part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Its cap ...

, are descended from elephants from Java that were presented by the "Raja of Java" (perhaps, the leader of

Majapahit Majapahit ( jv, ꦩꦗꦥꦲꦶꦠ꧀; ), also known as Wilwatikta ( jv, ꦮꦶꦭ꧀ꦮꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦠ; ), was a Javanese Hindu-Buddhist thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was based on the island of Java (in modern-day Indonesia ...

) to

Rajah Baguinda Rajah Baguinda Ali, also known as Rajah Baginda Ali, Rajah Baginda, Raha Baguinda, or ''Rajah Baguinda'', was a prince from a Minangkabau kingdom in Sumatra, Indonesia called "Pagaruyung". (Baginda/Baguinda is a Minangkabau honorific for ''prin ...

of Sulu at the end of the 14th century. Another tradition holds that elephants were presented to the

Sultan of Sulu The Sultanate of Sulu ( Tausūg: ''Kasultanan sin Sūg'', كاسولتانن سين سوڬ; Malay: ''Kesultanan Sulu''; fil, Sultanato ng Sulu; Chavacano: ''Sultanato de Sulu/Joló''; ar, سلطنة سولك) was a Muslim state that ruled ...

by the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

in 1750. The lack of a fossil record of elephants on Borneo has been cited as support for the theory that elephants have been recently introduced to Borneo. Fernando, et al., found that the elephants on Borneo have been genetically isolated from other Asian elephant populations for approximately 300,000 years, and, assuming that any elephants introduced into Borneo by the East India Company were from India, Sumatra, or peninsular Malaya, concluded that the elephants in Borneo are indigenous, representing a colonization during the Pleistocene. The Earl of Cranbrook, et al. conclude that either an indigenous occupation of Borneo since the Pleistocene, or a recent introduction from Java, are plausible for the origin for the Borneo elephants. If the Borneo elephants are descended from Javan elephants, then the Javan elephants presumably would have also been genetically distinct from other Asian elephant populations.

References

Elephants Fauna of Java {{afrotheria-stub

See also

References