What if? Luxodonta immanus, the king of elephants

Possible? Africa, or maybe even India? Domesticated? Bred for war? The foundation of a great Indian civilization? Or does it require the work of alien bats? What happens?

Depends on it's temperament. Even Indian elephants are generally too intelligent and irritable to be very useful war animals. Sure their shock value is excellent but they're intelligent enough to realise when they're in danger and then they panic. IIRC during the Raj, the Indian Army used elephants to haul artillery but on the approach to the actual battlefield, oxen teams would have to take over as the elephants were smart enough to recognise gunfire and couldn't be made to pull the guns further towards it.

African elephants are way too mean which is why they haven't been effectively tamed. Hannibal used the now extinct Atlas Mountains subspecies which wasn't that much larger than a large horse.

Thus, even if Loxodonta Immanus is as relatively tractable as the Indian Elephant you've got to weigh the advantages of having a bigger elephant against the extra trouble such a huge animal is going to cause when it decides to go berserk. The same thing goes for the use of this elephant for civilian draft purposes. I suspect the law of diminishing returns might apply and you might not be able to get that much more effective labour out of one of these guys to make up for the increased trouble controlling one as compared to an Indian Elephant.

I love elephants and war elephants are incredibly cool but, all things considered, just don't give enough bang for the buck.

Flocculencio said:

African elephants are way too mean which is why they haven't been effectively tamed. Hannibal used the now extinct Atlas Mountains subspecies which wasn't that much larger than a large horse.

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There's only few footnotes to your otherwise excellent post that I'd like to make: the Belgians in Belgian Congo
actually managed to domesticate the local African elephants with a rather remarkable degree of success.

...although I agree that these elephants were only used in agriculture for pulling plows etc., and not as war elephants
(and we all know how incredibly hard it is to train an elephant as an effective war elephant)

And the elephants the Belgians used in Congo were almost certainly African forest elephants, who are a bit smaller than savannah elephants, and were proven to be a separate species alltogether through genetic research only a few years ago.

...and one more note about African war elephants;
didn't the Axumites use war elephants in their armies at some point?

"Hannibal used the now extinct Atlas Mountains subspecies which wasn't that much larger than a large horse."

Not that impressive. I wonder what they'll do in the upcoming Vin Diesel movie.

@Ran: But the Belgians certainly didn't use those elephants in war, did they?

Well, war elephants would definitely be cool, but its not necessary. I'm just saying, what if this species existed throughout northern India, with a fair population? And what if they could be domesticated as easily or easier than their counterparts?

A couple of thoughts on that...they'd be very expensive to feed and maintain.
What if they were even smarter than any other elephants? As smart as chimps? What if some human artist hands his elephant a paintbrush and it paints a competent portrait of the artist??

I wouldn't wanna be in charge of that thing when it went into Must.

I had to go to Dictionary.com for that...Must is when elephants go into pon far.
Maybe they wait for the elephants to go into Must and then declare war...that would be tricky, though. I like the artistic idea better.
Could they figure out how to induce Must in an elephant?

Darkest said:

Well, war elephants would definitely be cool, but its not necessary. I'm just saying, what if this species existed throughout northern India, with a fair population? And what if they could be domesticated as easily or easier than their counterparts?

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Even then, I don't think much would change- as I said, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I doubt a huge elephant can really do that much more labour compared to a normal Indian elephant in terms of the fodder they'll need. Camels provide far more bang for your buck as draft animals.

And yes, they would be a bit more useful in war than Indian elephants but all in all elephants are still highly overrated as war beasts.

Thus, effectively we get a very large elephant. There's just not much more that can be done with it that can't already be done with Indian elephants.

Sunsurf: Inducing musth in an elephant would be a very bad idea. Yes, they'd become enraged killers- trouble is that they'd start by killing the people nearest to them i.e. the men riding them.

Yeah, I wasn't serious about encouraging Elephantine Must...encouraging artistic tendencies sounds like a better option. I wonder if elephants were used like
billboards, message boards?

Damn, I had no idea that Indian elephants were that small.

What about Mastodons, how big were they?

NapoleonXIV said:

Damn, I had no idea that Indian elephants were that small.

What about Mastodons, how big were they?

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I'm not sure about mastodons. However, I remember reading that mammoths were about the size of Indian Elephants.

Considering the elephants I've seen in the Kruger Park were huge, I'd be very afraid if a 14 foot elephant came at me!

That's just my opinion of course.

A 14-foot tall elephant could flippin' eat you, man. It wouldn't take it anything to grab you with its trunk and then stuff you in its mouth. Ouch.

Since these guys are so big, what if they don't have the typical reaction to danger as other elephants do? What if they are a little more courageous? Can you use that adjective to describe animals?

Flocculencio said:

I'm not sure about mastodons. However, I remember reading that mammoths were about the size of Indian Elephants.

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Thats my understanding too, but with slightly shorter legs and perhaps a bigger head. Less legs dissapates less heat, and the mammoths tusks would require a much sturdier body to support it. About all they were useful for was fighting, and cracking open frozen water supplies.

Simple solution to the mammuth-problem -
there where of course several species of them. some were really large, most of them not.

Alayta said:

Simple solution to the mammuth-problem -
there where of course several species of them. some were really large, most of them not.

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Yeah, apparently the largest mammoth species found stood at about 13 feet tall though, as you say, most were around Indian elephant size and there was a pygmy species.

Interestingly enough there was an elephant of the type described in this thread although it was of the genus Elephas (i.e. related to the Asian Elephant) and not Loxodonta.

Elephas recki

Elephants are cool

NapoleonXIV said:

What about Mastodons, how big were they?

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Depends of the species. Some Pliocene mastodons were trully giants. The latest mastodons of the Americas, however, were smaller than the common Indian elephant.

By the way, don't forget the "paradox" of Mediterranean elephants. Barbary elephants (Loxodonta africana pharaoensis) were African elephants but they were smaller than common Indian elephants. Syrian elephants (Elephas maximus syriacus) were Asian elephants, but as big (if not bigger) than African savannah elephants.