Forest elephants were thought to be a subspecies of the African elephant, but recent research has discovered that they are a separate species. Forest elephants have straighter tusks and more rounded ears than African savannah elephants. They also have five toes on the forefeet and four toes on the hindfeet, as Asian elephants do.

Forest elephants are to be found in the equatorial forests of central and west Africa where they are important dispersers of fruit seeds during the wet season. There are some forest fruit trees that are dependent on forest elephants as the seeds germinate after they have been digested and passed through.

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