More elephant based news!
A new study from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, published today, has found that elephants pay attention to the oldest female elephant in their group when a predator is approaching.
The research, carried out in Kenya, used recordings of roars from both male and female lions and monitored the reactions of groups of African Elephants. It has been known for a long time that elephants social groups are formed around a matriarchy. The experiment found that groups of elephants with matriarchs quickly organised themselves into defensive bunch formations after appearing to stop and pay attention to their female leader. These groups were also much more likely to approach the loud speaker producing the roar in an aggressive manner.
Male lions present a greater threat to groups of elephants as they are much more likely to attack elephants when alone and are usually much more successful than females who will only attack when part of a group. The elephants showed an ability to differentiate between male and female lions. The study also showed that matriarchs who were much older were much more likely to react in the appropriate way to roars made by male lions which is thought to be the result of experience.
The signals which allow the Matriarch to elicit this co-ordination among her group are still largely unknown due to the lack of loud vocalisations and Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon, who lead the initial study, are now looking into finding quieter, less obvious vocalisations and posture cues.
The study provides the first empirical evidence that within a social group, individuals may gain benefits from paying attention to an older leader because of their abilities in making decisions when under threat. This generates insights into selection for longevity in cognitively advanced social mammals.
