Animal
African forest elephant
The African forest elephant lives in the rainforests of Africa. It is smaller than the bush elephant, and its tusks point down.
The African forest elephant is a separate species from the bigger bush elephant. It lives in the rainforests of central and western Africa, eats lots of fruit and spreads the seeds of forest trees in its dung. It is Critically Endangered.
Loxodonta cyclotis, the African forest elephant, has been assessed by the IUCN as a species separate from the savanna elephant since 2021. Smaller, darker and straight-tusked, it is a major seed disperser of central and west African forests. It is Critically Endangered after a decline of more than 86 percent over 31 years.
Photo: Thomas Breuer, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the African forest elephant
The forest elephant lives in the rainforest.
It has a long trunk, round ears and straight tusks that point down. It is a little smaller than its cousin, the bush elephant.
For a long time, people thought all African elephants were one kind. Scientists now know there are two species: the African bush elephant of the open plains, and the African forest elephant of the rainforests.
The forest elephant is smaller and darker gray. Its ears are more rounded, and its tusks are straighter and thinner and point down instead of curving out. It is still huge: up to about 3 meters tall at the shoulder, and it can weigh more than 5,000 kilograms.
Loxodonta cyclotis was long treated as a subspecies of the African bush (savanna) elephant, L. africana. Between 2000 and 2010 most researchers came to recognize two species: their habitats rarely overlap and they seldom interbreed. In 2021 the IUCN assessed them separately for the first time, following new genetic evidence.
Britannica lists the differences: the forest elephant is smaller and darker gray, its tusks are straighter and thinner and point downward, and its ears are more rounded or oval. Adults stand about 2.4 to 3 meters at the shoulder and weigh about 1,800 to 5,400 kilograms, while bush elephants can reach about 4 meters. Males are larger than females and have longer tusks.
Quick facts
- Group
- Mammal
- Height
- 2.4 to 3 m
- Weight
- 1,800 to 5,400 kg
- Lifespan in the wild
- 60 to 70 years
Where forest elephants live
Forest elephants live in Africa.
They walk through thick, green rainforests. They visit muddy clearings and swamps to drink and find salt.
African forest elephants live in central and western Africa, in tropical forests from Senegal east to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most of them now live in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
The forests are so thick that forest elephants are hard to see. They often gather in open, swampy clearings called bais, where they drink and find the salt and minerals they need. Today they live in only about a quarter of the places they used to.
The IUCN's 2026 assessment lists the species as resident in 22 countries, from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to Uganda, South Sudan and Angola, and extinct in Gambia. Its range runs from tropical moist forest in the Guinean and Congolian forest blocks to the semi-arid country on either side of them, up to 2,000 meters. It occupies only about a quarter of its historical range.
Central Africa is the stronghold. The African Forest Elephant Status Report 2024 found just under 95 percent of the species there, with 66 percent in Gabon alone and 19 percent in the Republic of the Congo; about 5 percent live in West Africa and less than 1 percent in East and Southern Africa. The map shades whole countries, not the forests where elephants actually live.
Continent
Where can you find this animal?
- Used to live here · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Used to live here · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Gambia, where the IUCN lists the African forest elephant as extinct.
Places: Gambia.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Tropical forests and nearby semi-arid woodland of central and western Africa, from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; most forest elephants live in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. Elephants live in only part of each country shown.
Places: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Rep., Congo, DR Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and 14 more places.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Liberia, Gabon, Congo, DR Congo, Central African Rep., Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda and 14 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
Gardeners of the forest
Forest elephants eat lots of fruit.
They also eat leaves, bark and grass. Seeds from the fruit come out in their dung. New trees can grow from them!
Forest elephants are herbivores. They eat fruit, tree bark, shrubs, grasses, herbs and seeds, about 100 to 300 kilograms a day, and they spend about 20 hours a day finding food.
Fruit is a big part of their diet. The seeds travel inside the elephant and come out in its dung, often far from the tree they came from, and the dung feeds them as they sprout. Some rainforest trees only sprout after their seeds pass through an elephant. That is why forest elephants are called gardeners of the forest.
According to Britannica, forest elephants forage for some 20 hours a day and take in 100 to 300 kilograms of fruit, bark, shrubs, grasses, herbs and seeds. Because fruit dominates the diet, they disperse the seeds of many trees, especially large trees whose wood stores a lot of carbon; WWF notes that some species germinate only after passing through an elephant's gut. Dung deposited far from the parent tree acts as fertilizer.
By crushing and eating small trees they also thin the vegetation, letting sunlight, water and nutrients reach the plants that remain. To get salt and minerals they visit salt licks and mineral-rich waterholes or eat soil, a habit called geophagy. Some of these places are the clearings called bais, which the elephants themselves have opened up and dug out with their tusks.
Did you know?
Scientists count forest elephants by looking at their dung.
Scientists read the DNA in forest elephant dung to tell individual elephants apart and count them.
DNA capture-recapture identifies individuals from genetic fingerprints in dung, and gave Gabon a much more reliable national count.
Built for the forest
A forest elephant's tusks are straight and point down.
Its ears are round. Its trunk can smell, drink and spray water. Big ears flap to help it keep cool.
A forest elephant's tusks are long front teeth. They are straighter and thinner than a bush elephant's and hang down, which helps the elephant move through thick forest. Its ears are rounded instead of pointed.
The trunk is more sensitive than your fingers. Elephants use it to smell, eat, drink, bathe and call. Their big ears help them stay cool, because elephants have few sweat glands. Wrinkly skin traps water, which cools the elephant as it dries.
Animal Diversity Web describes the tusks as straighter and thinner than a savanna elephant's, hanging more vertically to help the animal pass through dense forest, and the ears as rounded, lacking the overhanging upper edge of a savanna elephant's ear. Males have longer tusks, set further apart, than females.
The trunk is more sensitive than human fingers and is used for smelling, eating, bathing, signaling and breathing. With few sweat glands, elephants shed heat by fanning their ears and pumping blood through them, while water trapped in wrinkled skin cools by evaporation. Thick fat pads in the feet spread the weight, and the sensitive feet pick up vibrations in the ground. Forest elephants stop growing at about 10 to 12 years, younger than savanna elephants.
A very slow start
A baby elephant is called a calf.
It grows inside its mother for about two years. It stays very close to her. The whole family helps look after it.
A mother forest elephant carries her calf for 22 to 24 months, about two years. Usually just one calf is born. It can stand soon after birth, and very young calves stay within about 5 meters of their mother.
All the females in the family help care for the young. Calves drink milk for years while they learn to find food in the forest. Forest elephants grow up slowly and reproduce much more slowly than bush elephants, so their numbers recover slowly.
Britannica gives a gestation of 22 to 24 months, the longest of any living mammal, and sexual maturity at 14 to 17 years; twins are rare. Calves can stand shortly after birth and stay within about 5 meters of the mother. Animal Diversity Web notes that little reproductive data exist for this recently recognized species, but reports that all females in a group help care for the young and that calves spend many years learning to find their way and their food.
WWF stresses that forest elephants reproduce much more slowly than savanna elephants, so populations cannot bounce back quickly after losses. Britannica reports that they can live 60 to 70 years.
Families in the forest
Forest elephants live in small families.
They look for fruit together in the forest. They visit big muddy clearings to find salt.
Forest elephants live in small family groups of up to about 20 elephants, and many groups have only a few. The families wander the forest finding fruit and visit swampy clearings to drink and dig for minerals.
Because the forest is so thick, scientists rarely see them. Instead they count elephant dung. Today they can even read the DNA in dung to tell one elephant from another, which helps them count how many there are.
Forest elephants live in small family groups: WWF gives up to 20 individuals, and Animal Diversity Web a typical group of 2 to 8, usually related females and their young. Animal Diversity Web also reports that many move with the seasons, using swampy areas in the dry season and returning to lowland rainforest in the wet season.
Dense cover makes direct counts impossible, so populations have been estimated from dung counts. The African Forest Elephant Status Report 2024 also used DNA capture-recapture: researchers identify individuals from the genetic fingerprints in dung samples and compare first and later samples to estimate population size. A nationwide DNA survey of Gabon revealed many more elephants than were counted in 2016.
Did you know?
A baby forest elephant grows inside its mom for about two years.
A forest elephant's pregnancy lasts 22 to 24 months, about two years.
Britannica gives a gestation of 22 to 24 months, the longest of any living mammal.
Protecting the forest elephant
There are not many forest elephants left.
Rangers guard the forests where they live. Many people are working together to keep them safe.
The African forest elephant is Critically Endangered. Its numbers fell by more than 86 percent in 31 years. Poaching, when people illegally kill elephants for their ivory tusks, is the biggest danger, and forests are cut down for farms, mines and roads.
There is hope too. In well-protected parks in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo, numbers have held steady. A report released in 2025 estimated about 135,690 forest elephants in the areas it surveyed, using better ways of counting them.
The IUCN lists the species as Critically Endangered: its 2021 assessment found a decline of more than 86 percent over 31 years, and its 2026 reassessment keeps the listing. Poaching for ivory remains the most immediate threat, alongside habitat loss and fragmentation from agriculture, mining, logging, roads and railways.
The African Forest Elephant Status Report 2024, released in November 2025, estimated 135,690 individuals in the areas surveyed between 2016 and 2022, plus 7,728 to 10,990 from more tentative guesses. Its authors stress that the 16 percent rise over 2016 reflects better surveys, not population growth, and that two landscapes lost about 7,000 elephants. Anti-poaching patrols, including a cross-border brigade run by Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, supportive laws and land-use planning have helped stabilize numbers in well-managed areas of Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
IUCN Red List
How is the african forest elephant doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered (this animal)
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Critically Endangered
At extremely high risk of disappearing from the wild.
See the IUCN Red List assessment · The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022.2
Amazing facts
-
Forest elephants help plant new trees.
Some rainforest trees only sprout after their seeds have passed through a forest elephant.
WWF reports that the seeds of some rainforest trees germinate only after passing through an elephant's digestive tract.
-
Forest elephants dig muddy clearings in the forest.
Forest elephants dig out swampy clearings, called bais, with their tusks, and visit them for salt and minerals.
Some of the mineral-rich forest clearings known as bais were cleared and excavated by the elephants themselves.
-
Scientists count forest elephants by looking at their dung.
Scientists read the DNA in forest elephant dung to tell individual elephants apart and count them.
DNA capture-recapture identifies individuals from genetic fingerprints in dung, and gave Gabon a much more reliable national count.
-
A baby forest elephant grows inside its mom for about two years.
A forest elephant's pregnancy lasts 22 to 24 months, about two years.
Britannica gives a gestation of 22 to 24 months, the longest of any living mammal.
Words to know
- species
- one kind of living thing; two species do not usually have young together
- seed dispersal
- the spreading of seeds to new places, where they can grow
- bai
- a swampy, open clearing in a central African forest
- poaching
- hunting animals when it is against the law
- critically endangered
- at very high risk of disappearing from the wild
- tusk
- a very long front tooth made of ivory
Discovery challenge
-
Which way do a forest elephant's tusks point?
How are a forest elephant's tusks different from a bush elephant's?
Which describes the tusks of Loxodonta cyclotis?
- They curve out to the sides
- They are straight and point down
- Forest elephants have no tusks
Show the answer
They are straight and point down
Forest elephant tusks are straight and point down.
Forest elephant tusks are straighter and thinner and point down; bush elephant tusks curve outward.
Straight, thin tusks hanging near-vertically, unlike the outward-curving tusks of the savanna elephant.
-
What do forest elephants eat a lot of?
Which food makes up a big part of a forest elephant's diet?
Which food is most important to the forest elephant's role as a seed disperser?
- Fish
- Fruit
- Insects
Show the answer
Fruit
Forest elephants eat lots of fruit. The seeds come out in their dung.
Fruit is a big part of their diet, and the seeds are spread far and wide in their dung.
A fruit-dominated diet makes them major dispersers of tree seeds, including those of large trees.
-
Where do forest elephants live?
In which kind of place do most African forest elephants live?
Which countries hold most of the world's forest elephants?
- Rainforests of central Africa, mostly Gabon and the Republic of the Congo
- Snowy mountains of Asia
- Islands in the Pacific Ocean
Show the answer
Rainforests of central Africa, mostly Gabon and the Republic of the Congo
Forest elephants live in the rainforests of Africa.
Most forest elephants live in the rainforests of central Africa, especially Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
Central Africa holds just under 95 percent of the population: 66 percent in Gabon and 19 percent in the Republic of the Congo.
-
Are there lots of forest elephants?
What is the forest elephant's conservation status?
How does the IUCN list the African forest elephant?
- Least Concern: there are plenty
- Critically Endangered: there are very few left
- Extinct: they are all gone
Show the answer
Critically Endangered: there are very few left
No. There are not many left, and people are working to protect them.
The forest elephant is Critically Endangered after its numbers fell by more than 86 percent in 31 years.
Critically Endangered since its first separate assessment in 2021, a listing kept in 2026, because of poaching and habitat loss.
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
Gabon
Gabon is a country on the Atlantic coast of Africa, right on the equator. About three-fourths of it is covered by dense rainforest, home to forest elephants, gorillas and mandrills. Most people live in towns and cities, and the 2026 census counted about 3.5 million people.
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Watch
Natural wonder
River Congo
The Congo is Africa's second-longest river, about 4,700 kilometers long. It curves in a giant arc through the rainforests of central Africa and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Rain falls in its basin all year, so it carries a huge amount of water, and its wild lower rapids are home to about 320 kinds of fish, about 90 of them found nowhere else.
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Watch
Country
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic is a landlocked country in the very center of Africa, about the size of France. Grassy savannas cover the north, rainforests grow in the south, and the capital, Bangui, stands on the Ubangi River. About 5.5 million people lived there in 2025.
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Watch
Country
Liberia
Liberia is a country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, with long beaches, many rivers and lush rainforest. It was founded in the 1820s as a home for formerly enslaved people from the United States and became independent in 1847. About 5.8 million people lived there in 2026.
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Watch
Country
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo lies on the equator in west-central Africa. Thick rainforests cover much of it, the mighty Congo River forms its eastern border, and it has a short coast on the Atlantic Ocean. Forest elephants and gorillas live in its parks. About 6.5 million people lived there in 2025, most of them in two cities.
Experiments to try
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Country
Gabon
Gabon is a country on the Atlantic coast of Africa, right on the equator. About three-fourths of it is covered by dense rainforest, home to forest elephants, gorillas and mandrills. Most people live in towns and cities, and the 2026 census counted about 3.5 million people.
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Natural wonder
River Congo
The Congo is Africa's second-longest river, about 4,700 kilometers long. It curves in a giant arc through the rainforests of central Africa and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Rain falls in its basin all year, so it carries a huge amount of water, and its wild lower rapids are home to about 320 kinds of fish, about 90 of them found nowhere else.
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Country
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic is a landlocked country in the very center of Africa, about the size of France. Grassy savannas cover the north, rainforests grow in the south, and the capital, Bangui, stands on the Ubangi River. About 5.5 million people lived there in 2025.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain that Africa has two elephant species and describe how the forest elephant differs from the bush elephant.
- Describe how forest elephants spread seeds and shape the rainforest.
- Describe the forest elephant's slow life cycle and why it makes recovery slow.
- Understand why the species is Critically Endangered and how people count and protect it.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might straight, downward tusks be useful in a thick forest?
- If forest elephants disappeared, what might happen to the trees whose seeds they carry?
- Why is it so hard to count animals that live in thick forest, and how do scientists do it?
Try at home or in class
- Measure 3 meters up a wall or along the floor with tape to see how tall a big forest elephant can be.
- Cut open a few fruits and count their seeds, then talk about how animals might carry them to new places.
Key vocabulary: species, seed dispersal, bai, poaching, critically endangered, tusk
Where these facts come from
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- African forest elephant , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- African forest elephant , WWF
- Loxodonta cyclotis (African forest elephant) , Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan
- Loxodonta cyclotis (African Forest Elephant), 2026 assessment , IUCN Red List
- African elephant species now Endangered and Critically Endangered - IUCN Red List , IUCN
- DNA methods help uncover further African Forest Elephants, but species remains critically endangered , IUCN
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.