Morphometrics of a wild Asian elephant exhibiting disproportionate dwarfism
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Zoology, Anatomy and Physiology
- Keywords
- Elephas maximus, dwarf, Achondroplasia, Chondrodysplasia
- Copyright
- © 2014 de Silva et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Morphometrics of a wild Asian elephant exhibiting disproportionate dwarfism. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e234v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.234v1
Abstract
Dwarfism is a condition characterized by shorter stature, at times accompanied by differential skeletal growth proportions relative to the species-typical physical conformation. Causes vary and are well-documented in humans as well as certain mammalian species in captive or laboratory conditions, but rarely observed in the wild. Here we report on a single case of apparent dwarfism in a free-ranging adult male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in Sri Lanka, comparing physical dimensions to those of other males in the same population, males in other populations, and previous records. The subject was shorter than typical mature males, with a shoulder height of approximately 195cm and a body length of 218cm. This ratio of body length to height also deviates from what is typically observed, which is nearly 1:1. The subject also exhibits a slight elongation of the skull. We discuss how this phenotype compares to cases of dwarfism in other non-human animals.
Author Comment
This preprint is a modified draft of a manuscript that was previously released on BioArxiv (http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/24/001594). Additional information came to light after the previous version. Changes in this version include the addition of more photographs to Figure 2, a new Figure 3, and corresponding changes to the figure legends and text.