Ancient elephants deserve respect

2001/04/20 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

According to the study published in the journal Science, elephants have founded reasons to have a good memory. It seems that the experience of older elephant females helps the team distinguish friends and enemies. Consequently, the proliferation rate of groups with known females is higher.

According to researchers, the same can occur in other species, which would explain why some puppy populations have so little breeding.

Researchers from the University of Sussex (Great Britain) and the London Institute of Zoology analyzed 20 family elephant groups from Kenya. Each group consisted of several females and their offspring. Often, when looking for food, they encountered other groups or isolated elephants, but each group moved separately.

To test the knowledge of their social environment, recorded elephant calls were placed and the response of the elephants they were investigating was seen. Normally, upon hearing the call of strangers, the females gathered around them to protect the offspring. On the contrary, if the call was from a acquaintance, they pretended not to listen.

However, it was observed that some groups were better than others to distinguish strangers. It seems that the older females were the more direct the decision made by the group. In addition, thanks to the wisdom of this old female, the group lost less time unnecessarily protecting and suffering less stress. Consequently, they had more offspring than other groups of elephants.

Expanding the research output to other species, a biologist at the Halifax Institute of Canada states that the effect of katxalote tiles made 18 years ago is visible in the catxalote populations of the coasts of Peru, Chile, Japan and northwest Europe. In fact, the birth rates of these populations are very low. Therefore, the biologist notes the importance of older people for the group as a whole.