# Motty

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Individual hybrid elephant

For the British football commentator known as "Motty", see [John Motson](/source/John_Motson).

Motty Breed (African elephant–Asian elephant hybrid) Sex Male Born (1978-07-11)11 July 1978 Chester Zoo, Cheshire, England Died 21 July 1978 (aged 10 days) Chester Zoo, Cheshire, England Parents Jumbolino (father) Sheba (mother) Named after George Mottershead

**Motty** (11 July – 21 July 1978) was the only proven [hybrid](/source/Interspecific_hybrid) between an [Asian](/source/Asian_elephant) and an [African elephant](/source/African_elephant). The male calf was born in [Chester Zoo](/source/Chester_Zoo) to Asian mother Sheba and African father Jumbolino.[1] He was named after [George Mottershead](/source/George_Mottershead), who founded the Chester Zoo in 1931.

## Appearance

Motty's head and ears were morphologically like *Loxodonta* (African), while the toenail numbers, with five on the front feet and four on the hind, were that of *Elephas* (Asian). The trunk had a single trunk finger as seen in *Elephas* but the trunk length was more similar to *Loxodonta*. His vertebral column showed an *Loxodonta* profile above the shoulders transitioning to the convex hump profile of *Elephas* below the shoulders.[2]

## Cause of death

Due to being born six weeks early, Motty was considered underweight by 27 kg (60 lb). Despite intensive human care, Motty died of an umbilical infection[3] 10 days after his birth on 21 July. The [necropsy](/source/Necropsy) revealed death to be due to [necrotizing enterocolitis](/source/Necrotizing_enterocolitis) and *[E. coli](/source/E._coli)* [septicaemia](/source/Septicaemia) present in both his colon and the umbilical cord.[2]

## Preservation

His body was preserved by a private company, and is a mounted specimen at the [Natural History Museum](/source/Natural_History_Museum%2C_London) in [London](/source/London).[4]

## Other elephantid hybrids

[African forest elephants](/source/African_forest_elephant) and [African bush elephants](/source/African_bush_elephant) are known to hybridize with each other where their ranges overlap.[5] Analysis of [nuclear genomes](/source/Nuclear_genome) reconstructed from [ancient DNA](/source/Ancient_DNA) indicates that members of the extinct elephant genus *[Palaeoloxodon](/source/Palaeoloxodon),* including the European [straight-tusked elephant](/source/Straight-tusked_elephant) had significant (>30%) [introgressed](/source/Introgression) ancestry from African forest elephants and to a lesser extent [mammoths](/source/Mammoth).[6] Genetic evidence suggests that the North American [Columbian mammoth](/source/Columbian_mammoth) was the result of hybrization between two different mammoth populations, with [woolly mammoths](/source/Woolly_mammoths) and Columbian mammoths sometimes hybridizing during the Late Pleistocene in North America.[7]

## See also

- [List of individual elephants](/source/List_of_individual_elephants)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["Motty, an asian elephant x african bush elephant (cross-breed) at Chester Zoo"](https://www.elephant.se/database2.php?elephant_id=1593). *www.elephant.se*. Retrieved 18 January 2019.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Rees2021_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Rees2021_2-1) Rees, P. A. (2021). *Elephants Under Human Care: The Behaviour, Ecology, and Welfare of Elephants in Captivity*. London: Academic Press. p. 167. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-12816208-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-12816208-8).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["Motty the elephant crossbreed"](https://www.elephant.se/Motty_the_elephant_crossbreed.php). *www.elephant.se*. Retrieved 16 May 2019.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-DNA1997_4-0)** Yang, H.; Golenberg, E. M.; Shoshani, J. (1997). "Proboscidean DNA from museum and fossil specimens: an assessment of ancient DNA extraction and amplification techniques". *Biochemical Genetics*. **35** (5): 165–179. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1023/A:1021902125382](https://doi.org/10.1023%2FA%3A1021902125382). [hdl](/source/Hdl_(identifier)):[2027.42/44162](https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42%2F44162). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [9332711](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9332711). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [2144662](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:2144662).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Mondol, Samrat; Moltke, Ida; Hart, John; Keigwin, Michael; Brown, Lisa; Stephens, Matthew; Wasser, Samuel K. (December 2015). ["New evidence for hybrid zones of forest and savanna elephants in Central and West Africa"](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.13472). *Molecular Ecology*. **24** (24): 6134–6147. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[2015MolEc..24.6134M](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015MolEc..24.6134M). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1111/mec.13472](https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fmec.13472). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0962-1083](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0962-1083). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [26577954](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26577954).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Eleftheria Palkopoulou; Mark Lipson; Swapan Mallick; Svend Nielsen; Nadin Rohland; Sina Baleka; Emil Karpinski; Atma M. Ivancevic; Thu-Hien To; R. Daniel Kortschak; Joy M. Raison; Zhipeng Qu; Tat-Jun Chin; Kurt W. Alt; Stefan Claesson; Love Dalén; Ross D. E. MacPhee; Harald Meller; Alfred L. Roca; Oliver A. Ryder; David Heiman; Sarah Young; Matthew Breen; Christina Williams; Bronwen L. Aken; Magali Ruffier; Elinor Karlsson; Jeremy Johnson; [Federica Di Palma](/source/Federica_Di_Palma); Jessica Alfoldi; David L. Adelson; Thomas Mailund; Kasper Munch; Kerstin Lindblad-Toh; Michael Hofreiter; Hendrik Poinar; David Reich (2018). ["A comprehensive genomic history of extinct and living elephants"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856550). *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America*. **115** (11): E2566–E2574. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[2018PNAS..115E2566P](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018PNAS..115E2566P). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1073/pnas.1720554115](https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.1720554115). [PMC](/source/PMC_(identifier)) [5856550](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856550). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [29483247](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29483247).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-OldestDNA_7-0)** van der Valk, T.; Pečnerová, P.; Díez-del-Molino, D.; Bergström, A.; Oppenheimer, J.; Hartmann, S.; Xenikoudakis, G.; Thomas, J. A.; Dehasque, M.; Sağlıcan, E.; Fidan, F. Rabia; Barnes, I.; Liu, S.; Somel, M.; Heintzman, P. D.; Nikolskiy, P.; Shapiro, B.; Skoglund, P.; Hofreiter, M.; Lister, A. M.; Götherström, A.; Dalén, L. (2021). ["Million-year-old DNA sheds light on the genomic history of mammoths"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116897). *Nature*. **591** (7849): 265–269. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[2021Natur.591..265V](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021Natur.591..265V). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1038/s41586-021-03224-9](https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41586-021-03224-9). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [1476-4687](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1476-4687). [PMC](/source/PMC_(identifier)) [7116897](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116897). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [33597750](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33597750).

## External links

- [Koehl D, Elephant Encyclopedia: Motty, the Hybrid Elephant](http://www.elephant.se/Motty_the_elephant_crossbreed.php)

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