Elephants are big land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three varieties of elephant are living today: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant (also called the Indian elephant). All the other varieties and genera of Elephantidae are extinct, many since the last ice age although dwarf kinds of mammoths might have lived through until 2,000 BCE. Elephants as well as other Elephantidae were once categorized together with other thick-skinned animals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata.
