Elephant , largest living land mammal, which during the Pleistocene Epoch roamed every landmass except Australia and Antarctica. Two extant species, the Indian elephant, of India and Southeast Asia, and the African elephant, ranging south of the Sahara, are now limited to tropical forests, savannas, deserts, and river valleys. The Indian elephant reaches heights of 3 m (10 ft) and the African elephant, 4 m (13 ft). Earlier members of this group-the mammoths, with some reaching 4.5 m (15 ft), and the smaller mastodons survived up to the time of the Paleolithic humans, whose cave drawings depicted woolly mammoths.