PIGMY ELEPHANTS

Southland Times, Issue 19771, 20 February 1923, Page 6

PIGMY ELEPHANTS

EATS 150 BANANAS A DAY. For the first time on record a baby pigmy elephant has just reached England from Africa (says "L.G.M.” in the Daily Mail). This most interesting little animal | was left at the London Zoological Cardens recently "on deposit,’’ with instructions ' that he would eat nothing but bananas, and that he needed 150 a day! He standi about 3ft high and was unlucky enough to break his leg when he was captured in French Gaboon, West Africa. | His father was only 6ft high, and his mother was six inches shorter still —half the height and a quarter of the bulk of the ordinary African elephant. Both parents were shot when the baby was captured. The injured leg has set rather badly, and there is to be a consultation of surgical experts on it. The little elephant is only three years old, but is able to feed himself with his 18-inch trunk—a sign that he has got out of the long-clothes stage of babyhood. He is perfectly tame and will let the keepers do anything with him, which is all in his favour, since he has come at the worst possible time of the year. He has been deposited, together with two chimpanzees, by Miss Cunningham, who owned "John Daniel” After he died Miss Cunningham went to West Africa and succeeded in obtaining another gorilla (which she is keeping at her home), in addition to the pigmy elephant and chimpaniees. (