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Gene sequencing studies conducted by scientists from Harvard, the University of Illinois and the University of York in Britain showed that the African savanna elephant and the smaller African forest elephant are distant cousins. "What our study suggests is forest and savanna elephants are very distantly related to each other and not just subspecies or populations of the same species," said Alfred Roca of the University of Illinois.

According to the study published in the Public Library of Science journal, the team compared the genetic code of modern elephants from Africa and Asia to the DNA taken from two extinct species, the woolly mammoth and the American mastodon.

"The surprising finding is that forest and savanna elephants from Africa -- which some have argued are the same species -- are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants and mammoths," David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston said in a statement.

The two species of African elephants are very different size. The savanna elephant is roughly double the weight of the forest elephant at six to seven tons and measures about 11.5 feet tall at the shoulder, making it about 3 feet taller than the forest elephant.

Many scientists, however, thought that all African elephants came from the same species, partly because they mated and produced offspring.

An expert in ancient DNA, however, believes the divergence of the two species happened a very long time ago.

"The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths," Professor Michi Hofreiter of York said in a statement.

"The split between African savanna and forest elephants is almost as old as the split between humans and chimpanzees.

"This result amazed us all."

Roca said they could figure out the time of divergence by comparing the genetic sequence of a very distant cousin of the other species called mastodon.

"The forest and savanna elephants proved to be as genetically distinct from each other as the woolly mammoth from the Asian elephant," he said.

"For the last 50 years, all African elephants have been treated as the same species. In fact, they are so different you really have to come up with a different conservation plan for each of the two."

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