By Will Dunham
(Reuters) – People greet each other in different ways. They can say “hello”, “guten tag”, “hola”, “konnichiwa” or “good morning”. They may shake hands, bump fists, make a fist and palm gesture, or press hands together with a gentle tilt of the head. They can kiss on the cheek or hand. And they can give a big hug.
For elephants, greetings appear to be an equally complex matter. A study based on observations of African savannah elephants in Zimbabwe’s Jafuta Reserve provides new insight into the visual, acoustic and tactile gestures they employ in greetings, including how greetings differ depending on factors such as sex and whether they are looking at each other.
“Elephants live in a society called ‘fission-fusion,’ where they often separate and reunite, finding themselves after hours, days or months apart,” said cognitive and behavioral biologist Vesta Eleuteri of the University of Vienna. in Austria, main author of the book. the study published this month in the journal Communications Biology.
Elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are highly intelligent, with keen memories, problem-solving abilities and sophisticated communication.
Female elephants from different family groups can have strong social bonds with each other, forming “bond groups”. Previous studies in the wild have reported that when these groups meet, elephants perform elaborate greeting ceremonies to announce and strengthen their social bond, Eleuteri said.
Male elephants have weaker social bonds and their greetings may function more to facilitate possible “risky meetings” – a hostile interaction. They greet each other mainly by smelling each other, reaching for their trunks, Eleuteri added.
The study detailed about 20 types of gestures displayed during greetings, showing that elephants combine them in specific ways with types of calls such as booms, roars and trumpets. It also revealed how smell plays an important role in greetings, often involving urination, defecation and secretions from a single elephant gland.
Elephants may greet by making gestures designed to be seen, such as opening their ears or showing their rump, or with gestures that produce distinct sounds, such as flapping their ears forward, or with tactile gestures that involve touching the other elephant.
“We found that they select these visual, acoustic and tactile gestures taking into account whether the partner who greeted them was looking at them or not, suggesting that they are aware of others’ visual perspectives. They preferred to use visual gestures when their partner was looking at them . them, while they were tactile when they weren’t,” said Eleuteri.
Greeting behavior has been studied in several animals.
“Many other species greet, including different primates, hyenas and dogs,” Eleuteri said. “Animal greetings help mediate social interactions, for example, reducing tension and avoiding conflict, reaffirming existing social bonds, and establishing dominance status using different behaviors.”
The new research built on previous studies of elephant greeting behavior. The nine elephants observed – four females and five males – were “semi-captive”, roaming freely in their natural environment during the day and kept in stables at night.
The greetings used by the female elephants closely corresponded to the behavior of wild elephants. The male elephants’ greeting behavior appeared to differ from their wild counterparts. Wild male elephants tend to be solitary, forming loose associations with other elephants.
The temporal gland, halfway between the eye and ear, secretes a substance called temporin, which contains chemical information about an elephant’s identity or emotional and sexual state. Elephants often use their trunks to check other people’s temporal glands.
“Elephant urine and feces also contain important chemical information for elephants, such as the identity of the individual, its reproductive status or even its emotional state,” said Eleuteri.
“Elephants may defecate or urinate during greetings to release this important information. Another option is that they do this out of excitement at seeing each other. But the fact that elephants often move their tail to the side or wag their tail when urinating and defecating suggests that they may be inviting the recipients to smell them. Maybe they don’t need to tell each other how they are as they can smell it,” Eleuteri added.
(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
