A university research team conducting a decade-long study on several group of Asian and African elephants revealed that, much like humans, elephants often manipulate and isolate distressed individuals by withholding common, everyday physical touches or pointedly refusing to vocalize.
This is the first empirical evidence of calculated indifference in elephant society.
The targeted elephant, often bewildered by its sudden (and often unjustified) abandonment, will roar, bellow, or emit a series of low-frequency growls in order to call to its former mates, unaware that its isolation is targeted and personal rather than accidental. The rest of the herd responds to this behavior by conspicuously and ostentatiously displaying affectionate behavior like nuzzling and trunk-twirling directly in front of the afflicted individual, just to rub it in.
An unrelated scientific study in India concluded that elephants are capable of physically and verbally consoling their friends and family in times of great pain or distress, much as humans do, often using comforting gestures in order to calm down a grieving individual.
Occasionally, however, and for no discernible reason, the herd will walk past a bereaved or suffering member and coldly refuse to make eye contact or touch it in any way.
This is not the only human-like behavior observed in elephant groups in recent years. Several elephants in captivity have been known to paint crude but effective group elephant portraits, often carefully and deliberately excluding a single member of the herd from the sketch.
Researchers believe there is no psycho-social benefit to such behavior and consider it an act of willful, pointless malice. Elephants are widely known for their powerful and long-reaching memories, and almost certainly carry the emotional scars of such bewildering, purposeless exclusion to their elephant graves.
Tags: animals, elephants, isolation, physical affection, withholding
Mallory.
Stop ruining everything, Mallory. ELEPHANTS ARE NOBLE AND KIND AND GOOD.
Because of all the murder and the killing of their mothers and the like, young elephants in the African regions suffer from the equivalent of hooliganism, often engaging in reckless vandalism because everyone who could teach them better are dead and they are alone and forever unloved.
*quietly sobbing*
nooooo
Warden: Well, animals are not like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they’ve had a hard life, or have been mistreated…but, like people, some of them are just jerks. Stop that, Mr. Simpson.
There really is a Simpsons quote for EVERYTHING.
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/4433042/stampy-1…
(there must be a way to embed the gif directly into the comment I haven’t figured out, right?)
you just do [img src=http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/4433042/stampy-1-o.gif] but with <> instead of []
I refuse to believe this without sources. Citation needed! CITATION NEEDED, MALLORY!
And then I cried myself to sleep with my cuddly elephant toy, who was no longer quite so comforting. Or meeting my eye…
“Human-like behavior” lol. How elitist! Humans are animals and this is simply animal behavior.
“What ho!” I said.
“What ho!” said Motty.
“What ho! What ho!”
“What ho! What ho! What ho!”
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.”
And on Wednesdays the elephants wear pink.
I came here to read Mean Girls quotes, and the internet did not disappoint me.
Thank you, internet.
Awwww they’re just wike little people!
I really hope that we make breakthroughs in decoding elephant body language soon, so we can finally learn what they’re saying about each other behind their backs.
And so “body language experts” in elephant gossip magazines can predict which couples are about to break up!
Oh my god. 🙁 This thought experiment is so weirdly comforting and uncomforting at once.
I often wonder what Mallory’s got on Google alerts.
herdstalking
“Oh my god, that sugarcane field last night was SICK. I think I ate like 400 pounds of sugarcane, lol. ( OsO )”
“What sugarcane?”
“Oh my god, that was for Kailey!!!!”
“I thought you said you were sick last night.”
“I have to go do my homework now. BYYYEEE.”
P.S. That emoticon is my attempt at an elephant version of O_O
It worked
Yeah no that’s amazing.
who did this to you
(trying to provoke johnortberg into appearing to say something INCREDIBLE)
Elephants are widely known for their powerful and long-reaching memories, and almost certainly carry the emotional scars of such bewildering, purposeless exclusion to their elephant graves.
Their solitary, lonely elephant graves, because even in death they are excluded from the mythic comfort of their bones decomposing en masse with those of the elephants in the elephant graveyards.
Tune in next week for the Elephant Burn Book
But will there be an elephant “Hey Cows!”?
The targeted elephant, often bewildered by its sudden (and often unjustified) abandonment
WhatEVER. That elephant TOTALLY DESERVED to be shunned. The other elephants were just trying to cut its TOXIC BEHAVIOR out of their lives, and they totally DO NOT NEED this JUDGMENT.
Then there’s a trunk-flip (like a hair-flip, but, you know) and some irritable adolescent elephant door-slamming.
I’m feeling particularly spiteful today, so my only response to this is: GOOD. Those isolated elephants probably deserve it.
When I was in high school, my class played a collective prank on a classmate who was rather credulous about all things. We somehow convinced him that in certain indigenous tribes in Africa, the women use female elephants as midwives, called “totumbas”. I have no idea how this originated, as it is certainly the most random thing ever thought up (and I kind of wish it were true). It was just random enough for him to buy it completely. This went on for months, and involved the construction of fake news articles and even enlisting our bio teacher, who was from South Africa, in confirming the existence of totumbas and “their beautiful matriarchal society.” When we broke it to him, he was very disappointed that this magical world did not exist. Of course, kids today would just google it first thing and that would be the end of whimsy.
When I was in high school, my class played a collective prank on a classmate who was rather credulous about all things. We somehow convinced him that in certain indigenous tribes in Africa, the women use female elephants as midwives, called "totumbas". I have no idea how this originated, as it is certainly the most random thing ever thought up (and I kind of wish it were true). It was just random enough for him to buy it completely. This went on for months, and involved the construction of fake news articles and even enlisting our bio teacher, who was from South Africa, in confirming the existence of totumbas and "their beautiful matriarchal society." When we broke it to him, he was very disappointed that this magical world did not exist. Of course, kids today would just google it first thing and that would be the end of whimsy.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9877346/#.UwZ-HYVnhFs
An elephant named La Petite was accused of having killed a handler. They were in an enclosure together, and the handler died. It’s a mystery what happened. From the article, “It’s possible one of the other elephants (in the enclosure) might have done it, but they attributed it to her.”
Elephants: accusing other elephants of murder!
oh jeez, now elephants are assholes too? Along with otters, dolphins and orcas? dammit nature, stop being so disappointing!
oh jeez, now elephants are assholes too? Along with otters, dolphins and orcas? dammit nature, stop being so disappointing!
It’s interesting that often the Hairpin (which is where I started) and the Toast (where I planted roots) post articles on the same topic often… but MAN the Toast spin is always so much more exciting!
I follow Frans de Waal (one of the researchers from the study this is riffing on, who I took a class with) on Facebook, and he posted this link today for his followers, because he thought it was funny. My weird internet corners are colliding, guys!
Frans de Waal (one of the study authors) was a professor of mine and he just posted this on his public FB with the note: “HUMOR. Our elephant study has moved to the realm of parody and humor!”
I cannot express how much this particular collision of my internets delights me.
Well that is fucking disquieting.
And yet, somehow, not altogether unexpected.