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Asian Elephant Bulls

Discussion in 'Asia - General' started by MARK, 25 Aug 2007.

  1. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    I was reading on with interest (on the net) about the Asian elephant bull "Raja Gai" who is a wild living Asian bull of the Bardia forest in Nepal who is claimed to be the largest living Asian bull in the world, his size is stated as over 11 feet or 3.35m to the shoulder, from what I have read there are a number of bulls in this area which are among the living today, from some of the pics of him he carries a fair set of tusks.

    One story about him entering a camp there at night where there were a few working cows which had been chained for the night, one of them was on heat only to have him snapping her chains and making off with her into the forest, unreal.
     
  2. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    mystery mammoth?

    I believe that some years ago an expedition was undertaken to find out if this same bull and another equally large one he went around with,, were actually of some 'mystery' subspecies... It was even rumoured that they could be some sort of relict mammoth species!

    A book was written about the 'search.' After all the hype (which is what it was really) I think it became obvious these two are just normal Asian bulls, but exceptionally large ones, with very large tusks and very pronounced 'domes' on the top of their heads. Maybe one of them has died since...
     
  3. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    Yes Grant one of them has since died, but they have found a few more of them, while they are indeed normal Asian elephants it appears that animals in this area are of a bigger than normal size even for this species
     
  4. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Must be either genetic, or very good feeding, or both?
     
  5. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    My money would be on the genetics