I've read that Hannibal Barca's elephants were African forest elephants rather than the African or Indian elephants that most people think of when you mention elephants.
However, looking at the range for Loxodonta Cyclotis today I can't help but wonder about where Hannibal got his elephants from. Carthage is pretty far from where you'd find forest elephants today, and they've got the Sahara desert between them.
So do we know where Hannibal got his elephants? Was the species' range larger in the time of ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic? or would the elephants have been procured through various trade networks? and do we even know the forest elephant's range at the time?
Well I've looked into it and I think I have an answer for you.
This is the first time I've ever looked into this, so naturally I checked Wikipedia first. I notice that what you say is also what Wikipedia says on the matter but as usual it does not cite sources properly. I have found something like a source on the matter, in the form of Adrian Goldsworthy (Fall of Carthage, 34) who says the Carthaginians "probably" used "African forest elephants, somewhat smaller than Indian elephants, but more amenable to training than today's African elephants."
The source Goldsworthy gives in his notes is H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World, London, 1974, which is a book so I can't look it up right now. However, in charging at that brick wall I did accidentally fall through a door, accidentally finding a more specific source on the matter in the form of Michael B. Charles and Peter Rhodan's journal article ""Magister Elephantorvm": A Reappraisal of Hannibal's Use of Elephants", published in The Classical World 100, no. 4, 2007, pages 363-389. The article discusses this issue exactly.
Charles and Rhodan (not sure exactly which one is writing here) points out that there are two types of African elephants, the bush or savannah elephant known as loxodonta africana, and another elephant known as the loxodonta cycloctis (364), which is what we now call the African forest elephant (365). It is this elephant the Carthaginians are supposed to have used, as you have read.
Apparently these forest elephants, while they only inhabit tropical areas of the continent today, probably used to live in North Africa (365, esp. footnote 10), and had been captured and trained for war from about 285 BC, possibly with the help of skilled elephant trainers and handlers from the east. Notably, Hannibal may also have also had at least one Indian elephant in his army (366). The summary of the debate on the matter in this article is that, due to their smaller size, Carthaginian elephants were used more as "mobile battering rams" than the living fighting platforms with towers and howdahs associated with the larger Indian variety (368).
So basically, Hannibal did use loxodonta cyclotis, which were not extinct in North Africa at that time, though the Carthaginians did probably need expertise from further east to capture and train them in the first place.
EDIT: To be extra clear, according to Charles and Rhodan, "the ancients almost certainly never used [the bush elephant, loxodonta africana] for combat duty" (364).
