Asian elephants, like their African cousins, appear to mourn their dead, sometimes even carrying their lost babies in their trunks for days or weeks, according to new research.
Whether the elephants understanding death the way humans do is unknown – and probably unknowable. But Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are social creatures, and the new research adds to the evidence that they experience some sort of emotional reaction when they lose one of their own.
“Understanding elephants’ response to death could have far-reaching effects on their conservation,” wrote study co-authors Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and Nachiketha Sharma of the Institute for advances from Kyoto University. in an email. “We have personally observed that when people see an elephant respond to a dead relative, there will be a certain sense of kinship, compassion and empathy towards the species. Therefore, anything that connects people instantly could open the way to coexistence in countries where elephants live.”
Ritual of death
African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana) have long been observed to react emotionally when a member of the herd dies. They may approach the body and touch it with their trunks, kick the corpse, or stand nearby as if on guard duty. Asian elephants, however, are less well understood. They tend to live in forested habitats, so they are harder to spot in the wild than African elephants living in the savannah.
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“They can be 100 feet [30 meters] away from you, and you might not see them because the forest is so dense,” said Brian Aucone, senior vice president for life sciences at the Denver Zoo, who was not involved in the survey. new study.
To circumvent this problem, Pokharel, Sharma and their co-author Raman Sukumar, all from the Indian Institute of Science at the time, turned to YouTube, where remarkable animal videos are a must. They searched the site for keywords related to Asian elephants and death, and discovered 39 videos of 24 cases between 2010 and 2021 in which one or more Asian elephants were seen reacting to the loss of a herd mate. 80% of the videos showed wild elephants, 16% captive elephants and 4% semi-captive elephants (generally, semi-captive elephants are animals that work in the timber industry or in tourist parks in Asia).
Some of the most striking behaviors seen in the videos have occurred when a calf has died. In five of the 12 videos showing a deceased calf, an adult female – likely the mother – was seen carrying the calf. Based on the state of decomposition of the corpse, it appeared that this carrying behavior lasted for days or weeks.
Indian Forest Service ranger Parveen Kaswan uploaded one such video in 2019, showing an Asian elephant dragging the body of a calf down a road in what he compared to a “funeral procession” in a post on Twitter at the time.
“I think they’re hanging on and trying to figure out what happened, and there’s something going on there with their interaction with their offspring, just like it would be with us,” Aucone told about behavior.
Other common elephant reactions seen in videos include restlessness or alertness near the dead body; exploratory movements such as approaching or examining the body; or touch and feel. Elephants communicate through smell, Aucone said, so sniffing isn’t surprising. In 10 cases, the elephants tried to lift, push or shake the body, as if trying to revive their lost comrade. In 22 cases, they seemed to watch over the body.
“We’ve seen this before ourselves,” Aucone told Live Science. When the zoo euthanizes older elephants due to illness or infirmity, staff give herdmates a chance to say goodbye, Aucone said. Survivors often sniff the deceased elephant or deposit their trunks through its mouth, a social behavior.
pet mourning
Elephants aren’t the only social creatures that react to death, especially the death of babies. orca mothers have been observed nudging their dead calves, as have dolphins. In 2018, a female killer whale named Tahlequah off Washington clung to her lost baby for 17 days. Other female killer whales were seen huddled around Tahlequah and her dead newborn within hours of the baby’s death in what looked like a circle of grief. Monkeys and mother monkeys sometimes carrying dead infants for weeks or months.
In the case of elephants, which are dedicated to the care of their young, the mother-calf bond is fundamental, write Pokharel, Sharma and Sukumar in the study, published Wednesday May 18 in the Royal Society Open Science journal. This is also true for primates, Pokharel and Sharma told Live Science.
“[T]The mother-calf/infant bond in elephants and primates has striking similarities, as both nurture their young until they grow strong enough to feed and defend themselves,” they wrote. “Therefore , this enduring bond between mothers and calves/infants can potentially motivate mothers to react to their unresponsive calves. It is very difficult to predict the exact causes and functionality behind dead infant carriage. But, some of the YouTube videos certainly provide evidence that some species may have some sense of death awareness.”
Originally posted on Live Science.