by How do elephants say hello?
As it happens, researchers are learning more about how the animals greet each other, and how relationships among social species may affect that communication.
African elephants use different combinations of gestures and vocalizations in their greetings, such as ear-flapping and vocalization — behaviors that may promote individual recognition and social bonding, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.
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The study, which monitored the vocalizations and physical actions of nine semi-captive elephants living in the savanna within the Jafuta Reserve in Zimbabwe, found that the elephants could change the way they greet each other at depending on whether the other elephant is looking at them.
When other elephants were watching them, they were more likely to use visual gestures to communicate – such as ear spreading, trunk reaching or trunk swinging, according to the researchers. When not being watched, elephants were more likely to touch the recipient of their blessing with their trunk, or use gestures that produce sound, such as ear flapping and slapping their ears against their neck.
“If you’re not looking at me, I might use a tactile gesture. I might touch you to tell you something,” said Vesta Eluteri, a University of Vienna researcher who studies Savannah elephant communication. of Africa and lead author of the study. ABC news.
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When studying elephant social groups, the human observer can often discover the relationships among the elephants based on how they greet each other, Eluteri said. These relationships can include females with their offspring, and even two different families forming a bond group, she said.
“Often when they meet each other, they are so excited that they are chasing, trumpeting, roaring, and they just come together to strengthen this relationship,” said Eluteri.
On the other hand, males tend to use more “investigative” greetings, such as after pointing their trunks to the mouth, or to other males’ temporal glands, which are located halfway between their eye and ear, to carefully mediate their reunion, said Eluteri .
“It’s more risky between males because of the higher competition,” she noted.
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Between November and December 2021, the researchers observed 89 elephant greeting events consisting of 1,282 greeting behaviors, 1,014 of which were physical actions and the rest were speeches, according to the paper.
The observations showed that elephants greeted each other with specific combinations of vocalizations and gestures, such as rumbles with ear flapping or ear spreading, as well as other less deliberate physical movements such as tail raising and waggling, according to the study. .
Although previous research has reported that elephants often engage in greeting rituals involving vocalizations and physical actions, it was unclear whether these physical actions were intentional gestures used for communication. It was also unclear how gestures and vocalizations are combined during greetings, the researchers said.
“This is the first step in understanding the ways in which elephants communicate with vision and touch,” said Eluteri. “They were described using different body movements, but we didn’t really know if these were really communicative.”
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Most previous research into communication among mammals has focused on chimpanzees and other primates. The lack of current research in elephant communication prompted Eluteri to undertake the study. After seeing elephants interacting in the wild, she became convinced that the gestures they used were intentional, she said, adding that greetings in the wild are “very elaborate”.
“If you spend time with elephants, you can even tell when they are communicating with you,” she said.
The study examines elephant greetings and how they change based on social relationships appeared first on abcnews.go.com
