Rana is a young tusker of Yala’s Gemunu group, the park’s most habituated herd. According to researchers at the Centre for Conservation and Research, some wildlife officials mistook him for a female, and newspapers reported him as the world’s only female tusker. In 2011 the Sunday Times reported that the ‘female tusker’, then thought to be about six years old, would be examined by a team led by Professor Charles Santiapillai before the claim was accepted.