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Study shows how elephants keep track of absent family members

Posted Dec 05, 2007 at 03:17AM by David T. Listed in: Animals and Wildlife
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An elephant herd in motion - Image 1 


When it's midnight, wild elephants know where their kids are. According to a study conducted by Dr. Richard Byrne and Dr. Lucy Bates of St. Andrews University, elephants make use of both their sense of smell and good mental maps to keep track of their relatives' whereabouts when traveling.

Drs. Byrne and Bates studied 36 family groups of wild elephants in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. The two scientists made their discovery when they collected samples of elephant urine from the ground and presented it to the elephant's relatives, hoping to trick them into thinking that the elephants' relatives had passed by and to observe how the elephants would react. The animals showed signs of surprise, after considering that the said relatives were actually walking behind them.

The elephants' reaction led Dr. Byrne and Dr. Bates to theorize that the elephants reacted the way they did to the urine sample because the animals identified the scent of the urine and continued to update their memory of where every other elephant was. These two advantages, according to Byrne and Bates, give elephants the ability to manage herds of up to 30 members. Now, imagine a human mother with that kind of ability...

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