Borneo's pygmy elephants

Find out about the Heart of Borneo conservation initiative, a transboundary effort to protect the island's montane forest uplands - 220,000 km² of pristine tropical rainforests, home to pygmy elephants, orang-utans and rhinoceros.

Borneo's pygmy elephants

Bornean Pygmy elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) family, parents with calf. Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, North Borneo, Malaysia.
© WWF-Canon / A. Christy WILLIAMS

Walt Disney himself couldn't have crafted a cuter elephant. The pygmy elephants of Borneo are baby-faced little pachyderms, with oversized ears, plump bellies and tails so long they sometimes drag on the ground as they walk.

They are also gentle-natured, leading to the belief for years that they were simply the semi-tame remnants of a domesticated herd abandoned on the island years ago.

But a WWF study proved that wrong and Borneo’s pygmy elephants are likely to be officially declared a new subspecies. That makes them a high conservation priority. Yet they remain the least-understood elephants in the world.