Motty (11 July – 21 July 1978) was the only proven hybrid between an Asian and an

African elephant African elephants are members of the genus ''Loxodonta'' comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant (''L. africana'') and the smaller African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''). Both are social herbivores with grey skin. ...

. The male calf was born in

Chester Zoo Chester Zoo is a zoo in Upton-by-Chester, Cheshire, England. Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family. The zoo is one of the UK's largest zoos at and the zoo has a total land holding of approximately . Chester Zoo ...

to Asian mother Sheba and African father Jumbolino. He was named after George Mottershead, who founded the Chester Zoo in 1931.

Appearance

Motty's head and ears were morphologically like ''Loxodonta'' (African), while the toenail numbers, with five on the front feet and four on the hind, were that of ''Elephas'' (Asian). The trunk had a single trunk finger as seen in ''Elephas'' but the trunk length was more similar to ''Loxodonta''. His vertebral column showed an ''Loxodonta'' profile above the shoulders transitioning to the convex hump profile of ''Elephas'' below the shoulders.

Cause of death

Due to being born six weeks early, Motty was considered underweight by . Despite intensive human care, Motty died of an umbilical infection 10 days after his birth on 21 July. The necropsy revealed death to be due to necrotizing enterocolitis and '' E. coli'' septicaemia present in both his colon and the umbilical cord.

Preservation

His body was preserved by a private company, and is a mounted specimen at the Natural History Museum in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Other elephantid hybrids

African forest elephants and African bush elephants are known to hybridize with each other where their ranges overlap. Analysis of nuclear genomes reconstructed from

ancient DNA Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient sources (typically Biological specimen, specimens, but also environmental DNA). Due to degradation processes (including Crosslinking of DNA, cross-linking, deamination and DNA fragmentation, fragme ...

indicates that members of the extinct elephant genus ''

Palaeoloxodon ''Palaeoloxodon'' is an extinct genus of elephant. The genus originated in Africa during the Early Pleistocene, and expanded into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. The genus contains the largest known species of elephants, with ...

,'' including the European straight-tusked elephant had significant (>30%) introgressed ancestry from African forest elephants and to a lesser extent mammoths. Genetic evidence suggests that the North American Columbian mammoth was the result of hybrization between two different mammoth populations, with woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths sometimes hybridizing during the Late Pleistocene in North America.

References

External links