The African Elephant, _E. africanus_, has been sometimes referred to a distinct genus or sub-genus, _Loxodon_, by reason of the lozenge-shaped areas on the worn grinding-teeth. It lives, as its name denotes, in Africa. This species has a number of external features which enable it to be distinguished from the Oriental Elephant. The head slopes back more, and has not the two rounded bosses which give so wise a countenance to the Indian species. The ears are very much larger. The tip of the trunk has a slight triangular projection on both the lower and the upper part of the circumference of the aperture. There are four nails on the fore-feet and three on the hind. As in the Indian form, the toes are all bound together, and do not appear for any part as free digits. A thick pad of fat, etc., makes the animal when alive look as if plantigrade, whereas it is, as a matter of fact, digitigrade. In internal features the most prominent difference from _E. indicus_ is in the molar teeth, which are ridged by much fewer ridges. The outside number for a single tooth in the present species is 10 or 11. In _Elephas indicus_ on the other hand there are as many as 27. The African Elephant, thinks Sir Samuel Baker, reaches a height of about 12 feet, and it will be remembered that the notorious "Jumbo" was found to be 11 feet high at the shoulder. The tusks are found in both sexes, as in the Indian beast, but are relatively larger in the female in the species now under consideration. It is also a rather more active creature, and is more savage;[140] however it can be tamed, as is shown by several {222} specimens which have been and are in the possession of the Zoological Society, and other proprietors. It was apparently used in the past. Certain Carthaginian coins are stamped with a figure of the African Elephant; but in Africa no attempts are now made to utilise this creature except for food and ivory. [Illustration] FIG. 117.--African Elephant. _Elephas africanus._ x 1/56. (After Sir Samuel Baker.) The meaning of an Elephant as an emblem. upon a coin appears to be eternity, and there is no question but that the {223} Elephant is a long-lived animal. It is said that it hardly reaches proper maturity before forty, and that 150 years is not beyond probability in the way of longevity. Even longer periods have been assigned to it.