Elephants are fascinating creatures. Despite their allure, our understanding of the elephant brain remains limited, and there are notable neuroanatomical differences between the Asian (Elephas Maximus) and African elephants (Loxodonta africana), which have largely gone unexplored. In a recent study, researchers from Humboldt Universität in Berlin and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research collected numerous elephant brains to investigate the macroanatomical features that differentiate the species. Surprisingly, they found that Asian elephants possess a larger brain and greater grey matter volume than African elephants, an intriguing contrast given the smaller body size of Asian elephants.
Asian elephant in Myanmar. Image credit: John Jackson.
“The morphological distinctions among elephant species are well-documented,” stated Dr. Marav Schah from Humboldt Universität Berlin and his colleagues.
“For instance, African savanna elephants are larger and have bigger ears than their Asian counterparts.”
“It is also noted that only female African elephants grow larger tusks compared to the minimal tusks found in Asian females.”
“These disparities indicate significant genetic divergence between savanna elephants in Asia and Africa, believed to have arisen 50,000 to 8 million years ago.”
In this research, the team examined the brain weights and structures of both Asian and African elephants via dissections, existing literature, and MRI scans from wildlife and zoo animals.
The findings revealed that adult Asian elephants are significantly heavier than their African counterparts, whose brains average just over 4,400 grams.
This specific finding could not be definitively validated for male elephants, as data for the brain weights in Asian males is limited.
However, the cerebellum appears proportionately heavier in African elephants (22% of total brain body weight) compared to Asian elephants (19%).
Researchers also demonstrated that elephants undergo extensive postnatal brain growth.
By adulthood, an elephant’s brain is roughly three times heavier than at birth.
This indicates that elephants experience notably more brain growth than all primates; except for humans, where the brain weighs only about one-fifth of its final weight at birth.
A boy African elephant in Kenya. Image credit: George Wittemyer.
“The variance in brain weight is likely the most significant difference among these two elephant species,” Dr. Shah noted.
“This accounts for the behavioral variations observed between elephants in Asia and Africa.”
“For instance, the two species display markedly different interactions with humans.”
“Asian elephants have been partially domesticated for millennia and serve as working animals across various cultures and regions.”
“Conversely, only a handful of cases of partial domestication have been somewhat successful with African elephants.”
“It is considerably harder to integrate an African elephant into human society compared to an Asian elephant.”
The study was published today in the journal pnas nexus.
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Marav Shah et al. 2025. The larger and relatively small cerebellum of Asian elephants compared to the African savanna elephants. pnas nexus 4(5): PGAF141; doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf141
Source: www.sci.news
