The genders and numbers in that first sentence are a bit confusing, too. Pliny starts out with maximum and proximum in the neuter, because he’s thinking of animal, but Cicero would have written maximus and proximus (or maxumus and proxumus) in the masculine because of elephans. The same happens later with delphinus est celerrimum omnium animalium. This not the most classical Latin. Then he changes into the plural and uses illis because he’s thinking of elephants as the species as a whole.
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