Elephants in ancient China Elephants in ancient China The existence of elephants in ancient China is attested both by archaeological evidence and by depictions in Chinese artwork. Long thought to belong to an extinct subspecies of Asian elephants, named "Elephas maximus rubridens", they lived in Central and Southern China before the 14th century BC. They once occurred as far north as Anyang, Henan in northern China. The elephant is mentioned in the earliest received texts, including the "Shijing", "Liji", and "Zuozhuan." The oracle bone script and bronzeware script glyphs for elephant are pictographic depictions of an animal with a long trunk. Their modern descendant
Extinct in the wild Extinct in the wild An extinct in the wild (EW) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as known only by living members kept in captivity or as a naturalized population outside its historic range due to massive habitat loss. Examples of species and subspecies that are extinct in the wild include: The Pinta Island tortoise ("Geochelone nigra abingdoni") had only one living individual, named Lonesome George, until his death in June 2012. The tortoise was believed to be entirely extinct in the mid-20th century, until Hungarian malacologist József Vágvölgyi spotted Lonesome