Althouse: "A researcher once played a recording of an elephant who had died. The sound was coming from a speaker hidden in a thicket. The family went wild calling, looking all around."

September 10, 2015

"A researcher once played a recording of an elephant who had died. The sound was coming from a speaker hidden in a thicket. The family went wild calling, looking all around."

"The dead elephant’s daughter called for days afterward. The researchers never again did such a thing."

24 comments:

sinz52 said...: Elephant memory has long been known to be phenomenal.

And now we know that elephants even have a kind of burial ritual. Besides humans, they are the only other species to do that.

When a member of an elephant troupe dies, they will cover it with leaves and branches, and stand there for quite a while before moving on. Similar to how we might put a blanket over someone who just died.; 9/10/15, 12:28 PM
Gahrie said...: The best example of elephant/human social similarity is the case of the elephant hoodlums.

In an effort to increase elephant habitat, elephants were trapped and transported to new ranges. The scientists concentrated on young animals for these new populations, so no older males were moved. The young males, with no older role models became thugs, bullying other animals and acting like vandals. The solution? Move older male elephants into these populations and the older males quickly forced the young males to behave properly.; 9/10/15, 1:11 PM
robother said...: Hmmm. Wonder if there is any citation to a verified source for this tear-jerker of a story?
Or, should we just say he wrote up the anecdotes in a way he needed to get published, and get on the NYTimes best selling nonfiction list: its all good.; 9/10/15, 1:16 PM
Larry J said...: This story brought to mind the story from 2012 about elephants mourning the death of Lawrence Anthony, AKA "the Elephant Whisperer".; 9/10/15, 1:26 PM
Bobby said...: Gahrie,

That was South Africa's Pilanesberg Park and the elephant delinquents were actually killing rhinos- rhinos!- just because they could and hadn't been properly socialized by their elders to learn that "elephants don't do that"! It remains one of the most fascinating stories I've ever read about.; 9/10/15, 1:28 PM
Grackle said...: People better hope the animals never get really organized. We have a lot to answer for.

False Grackle; 9/10/15, 2:11 PM
Gabriel said...: They just started an elephant religion.; 9/10/15, 2:17 PM
buwaya said...: "Footfall" - Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle; 9/10/15, 2:55 PM
Big Mike said...: @buwaya, it's been a while but I seem to recollect that Footfall ends favorably. Right now it's hard to see how anything that's happening is going to end favorably.; 9/10/15, 3:20 PM
Wince said...: Don't elephants like to get drunk on fermented fruit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEwbxDceZbs; 9/10/15, 3:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Extrapolating, perceived human ghostly visitations could be alien ethologists messing with some of us for research purposes.; 9/10/15, 3:48 PM
David said...: I am lucky to have observed elephants in the wild. Aside from their amazing size and agility, the strongest memory is how they interacted with each other. Elephant families have powerful bonds. They obviously react to each other as individuals, and protection of the group is a high priority. It's unsurprising that they would remember the voice of one of the departed elephants, and that they would be surprised and disturbed by it.

Kudos to the researchers for not subjecting them to this again.; 9/10/15, 3:53 PM
David said...: There are also researchers who have concluded that elephants will recognize the bones of their own species and pay respect to the remains.; 9/10/15, 3:55 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: They played that sort of thing for laughs on The Big Bang Theory; Amy wanting to make Penny cry so she could attach electrodes to her skull, chart the brain activity, and then reproduce the phenomenon in a Rhesus monkey.

Risky, but it was actually pretty funny.

The actress who plays Amy is extremely talented, IMHO, and a little laugh track goes a long way, I should imagine.; 9/10/15, 4:30 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: The researchers never did such a thing again.

Which may be the humane thing to do. But it means we won't ever know if the behavior is general. And we have to take the word of these particular researchers that their reported observations are accurate and not exaggerated.; 9/10/15, 4:55 PM
Big Mike said...: @EDH, lots of animals besides elephants and h. sapiens like to get drunk on fermented fruit. Get on youtube and search "drunken squirrel" or "drunken possum," or "drunken raccoon." Drunken bears are very funny.; 9/10/15, 4:56 PM
Rockport Conservative said...: We have had Yorkies since the 80's. We bred the first one and kept a daughter. The first Yorkie Sparkle was killed by a black lab coming into our yard when she was eight, at that time the daughter was four. At least 5 years later we played a video with Sparkle in it, she was playing and barking. The daughter who had not seen the mother for five years became very excited, yelping and looking for her mother. We never played that again during the daughter, Lacey's, lifetime. She lived to be 15 years old.; 9/10/15, 5:22 PM
Roger This said...: Eric,

The actress who plays Amy - Mayim Bialik - is a for real scientist, with a doctorate in neuroscience. She also played Blossom in an old tv show.

A great addition to a fine show that was getting a bit stale until she arrived.

Cheers; 9/10/15, 5:54 PM
Carnifex said...: Anyone who thinks humanity has a corner on the market for emotions, and reasoning hasn't been paying attention. We choose to believe we are the epitome of evolution, but everything alive today has evolved for just as long. Maybe its our recognition of our own mortality that is the only thing that sets us really apart from animals.; 9/10/15, 8:54 PM
Gahrie said...: the only thing that sets us really apart from animals.

When you consider cases like Koko, who uses language (including inventing words) and tools, it becomes more difficult to set us apart.

But it is an undeniable fact that we are apart. There is a fundamental difference between us and the animals. That difference is becoming increasingly hard to define.

Many of us call that undefinable, but undeniable, difference a soul.

Gives you food for thought.....; 9/10/15, 10:18 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Beryl Markham in 'West With The Night' writes about flying in Africa in the 1920's, scouting elephants for hunters who were only interested in shooting males with big tusks. She said the elephants learned to associate the plane with the hunters and when she approached the large males would sometimes hide their heads in bushes so she would be unable to see their tusks.; 9/11/15, 6:27 AM
Rusty said...: Just because you can harvest the wildlife does not give you license to annoy the wildlife.
Leave the creatures alone unless you intend to eat them.; 9/11/15, 6:54 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Gahrie said...

...it becomes more difficult to set us apart.
...
That difference is becoming increasingly hard to define.

Phrases taken from the majority opinion of next big marriage case.

But it is an undeniable fact that we are apart. There is a fundamental difference between us and the animals.

Phrases taken from the dissent.; 9/11/15, 7:43 AM
tim maguire said...: sinz52 said...
Elephant memory has long been known to be phenomenal.

And now we know that elephants even have a kind of burial ritual. Besides humans, they are the only other species to do that.

When a member of an elephant troupe dies, they will cover it with leaves and branches, and stand there for quite a while before moving on. Similar to how we might put a blanket over someone who just died.

I've seen footage of elephants coming across and elephant skeleton, they stop and examine it like they know it's an elephant skeleton. They seem to have a sense of their mortality.; 9/11/15, 7:56 AM