Abstract
This examination of elephant bones and ivory indicates that elephants show an elevated level of interest in conspecifics over other dead animals. Elephants do not seem to express special interest in dead kin but rather they appear to have a generalized response to injured, dying and deceased conspecifics (Douglas Hamilton et al. 2006, McComb et al. 2006). The present study reports the behaviour of a group of elephants in response to a euthanized adult male elephant that suffered severe wounds inflicted by a conspecific male. Most of the observations from previous studies have been on females and female group members. In the present study, of special interest is the behaviour of unrelated, conspecific males to this carcass.
Disciplines
Animal Sciences | Biology | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Life Sciences
Recommended Repository Citation
Merte CE, Gough KF, Schulte BA. 2009. Investigation of a fresh African elephant carcass by conspecifics. Pachyderm 45, 124-126.