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African elephant

Loxodonta africana

257 billion neurons, three times as many as a human, almost all in the cerebellum.

Neurons

257 billion measured · whole brain (~98% in cerebellum)

Herculano-Houzel S et al. (2014). The elephant brain in numbers. Front Neuroanat 8:46. doi:10.3389/fnana.2014.00046.

In the cerebral cortex (or bird pallium)

5.6 billion

Herculano-Houzel et al. 2014.

Evidence

• Asian elephants pass the mirror mark test.
  Plotnik JM, de Waal FBM, Reiss D (2006) Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(45):17053-17057. doi:10.1073/pnas.0608062103.

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (2024) finds strong scientific support for conscious experience in mammals and birds.

Assess it against the published criteria