How do elephants say hello?
Researchers are learning more about how animals greet each other and how relationships between social species may affect this communication.
According to a paper published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology, African elephants use different combinations of gestures and vocalizations in their greetings, such as ear flapping and vocalizations; this behavior can foster individual recognition and social bonding.
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The study, which tracked the vocalizations and physical movements of nine semi-captive elephants living in a savannah in the Jafuta Reserve in Zimbabwe, also found that elephants can change the way they greet each other depending on whether the other elephant is looking at them.
The researchers found that when they were watched by other elephants, they were more likely to use visual gestures, such as opening their ears, reaching for the trunk, or shaking the trunk, to communicate. When not being watched, elephants were more likely to touch the greeter with their trunk or make noise-making movements, such as ear flapping and tapping their ears against their neck.
“If you’re not looking at me, I can use a tactile gesture. I can touch you to tell you something,” said Vesta Eleuteri, the study’s lead author and a University of Vienna researcher who studies communication in African savanna elephants. ABC News.
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When studying elephant social groups, the human observer can often detect relationships between elephants by how they greet each other, Eleuteri said. These relationships could involve females and their children, or even two different families forming a bonding group, she said.
“Often when they encounter each other, they get so excited that they rumble, trumpet, roar, and come together to strengthen that relationship,” Eleuteri said.
Males, on the other hand, tend to use more “investigative” greetings, carefully mediating their reunification by, for example, directing their torsos to the mouth or to the temporal glands located between the other males’ eyes and ears, Eleuteri said. .
“It’s riskier among men because of higher competition,” he said.
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According to the article, between November and December 2021, researchers observed 89 elephant greeting events consisting of 1,282 greeting behaviors, of which 1,014 were physical actions and the rest were vocalizations.
Observations have revealed that elephants greet each other with specific combinations of vocalizations and gestures, such as ear flapping or ear spreading, as well as other seemingly less intentional physical movements, such as tail lifts and wagging, according to the study. .
Although previous research has reported that elephants frequently perform greeting rituals that involve vocalizations and physical actions, it was unclear whether these physical actions were intentional gestures used for communication. It is also unclear how gestures and sounds are combined during greeting, the researchers said.
“This is the first step in understanding the ways elephants communicate through sight and touch,” Eleuteri said. “There were descriptions using different body movements, but we didn’t really know if they were actually communicative.”
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The majority of previous research on communication between mammals has focused on chimpanzees and other monkeys. The lack of existing research on elephant communication inspired Eleuteri to begin this study. After witnessing elephants interacting in the wild, he said he was convinced the gestures they used were intentional, adding that greetings in the wild were “very elaborate.”
“If you spend time with elephants, you can even tell when they are communicating with you,” he said.
Study explores elephant greetings and how they vary with social relationships appeared first on abcnews.go.com