WELCOME TO THE NEW ELEPHANT DISCUSSION BOARD!!
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator
Hi everyone!
I am very happy to introduce you to this new board exclusively dedicated to elephants.
Here we will be sharing all our doubts, comments and discoveries about elephants. Feel free to start any new discussion about elephants that you might find interesting; I will do my best to bring light to all your doubts.
Also, I will be very happy to read whichever personal experience with elephants that you might want to share with us 😉
Have fun!!
Posted
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by Snorticus in response to NuriaM's comment.
Oh yes - great idea, Nuria!
Posted
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by Felpa
Great, Nuria!
A while ago I saw a video in which two elephants approached with the trunk one of the trees to which the primates come to eat. I do not know the rest of the sequence, but I imagine that they will also take advantage of the tree. Do you know if all kinds of animals eat of that wood, or only some species?
Thanks!Posted
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator in response to Felpa's comment.
Hi Felpa, it´s a very interesting question.
Chimps and gorillas suck on wood pieces for several minutes before spitting them.The reason why animals "eat" decayed wood is because they take advantage of its nutrients, and especially of sodium.
This behaviour has been observed in other primates like lemurs.But not only are the primates salt lovers, but also elephants!. There are several reasons why elephants would eat wood and the nutrient benefit is one of them. They would even travel to underground caves for salt deposits. Wood-eating (not only decayed wood) also plays an important role in their dentition. Did you see this discussion: https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000w/discussions/DCP00018cd ?
And many other animals profit themselves from the nutrients found in wood: moose eat aquatic plants with high sodium content and colobus monkeys complement their diets with the leaves and bark of Eucalyptus, a plant rich in sodium.
There are several animals whose main food intake is wood. This behaviour is called Xylophagy and it´s a term used in ecology to describe the habits of an herbivorous animal whose diet consists primarily (often solely) of wood (or sapro-xylophagy if it´s decayed wood). This wouldn´t be the case, as chimps and elephants main food is not wood, but you can find a large list of xylophagous animals like bark beetles,
beavers,
gribbles (I love the name in Spanish, "limnóridos") wood wasps (horntails), termites, etc...Did I answer to your question? I sometimes tend to "beat about the bush" 😛
Posted
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by Felpa
Thanks Nuria, it's a very interesting information.
In the videos, primates, elephants and duikers eat with relish. I did not realize that sodium does not always meet the necessary abundance in natural environment, perhaps because I live in "modern" human society (excess of sodium).About your invitation to share experience with elephants, I cannot share ... except that I saw them suck muddy water in African lakes. I supossse, because of salt and digestive action, as you explained. But later, they spit mood ( play or need?).
And watch them go trotting away, getting lost in the leftovers of the forest and the sunset, when our jeep approached. It produced sadness. But of course, I also wanted to see them. Tourist... 😃
By the way, in the videos the elephants act slowly and we cannot see how smart they are. Perhaps there are video examples in chimp & see of the emotional intelligence of the elephants (apart from the elephant that takes a branch that comes out in your link).
Thanks also, for the link: elephants become babies 6 times in their life, chewing hard branches like a silent rattle ... 😃Felpa
P.D .: The "limnórido" name is very elegant, but the little bug ... (Oh, I think I'm a "living room" ecologist ...!)Posted
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by Batfan
Hi Nuria,
What do you think is the reason for the way the elephant is walking in ACP000djn9 ?Posted
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator in response to Felpa's comment.
look @Felpa, there are some interesting papers about geophagy:
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http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1644/1545-1542(2002)083<0652:GITAEI>2.0.CO%3B2
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https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Hoare/publication/278086576_Projects_of_the_Human-Elephant_Conflict_Taskforce_HETF_-_Results_and_Recommendations/links/557bfa2208aec87640d9d6e4.pdf#page=79 (page 78) this one is very interesting, about the role of iodine in ele. population size control.
As for the ele. intelligence, did you see the blog about elephants? . There is a post about emotions and another one about the elephant intelligence .
happy reading! 😃
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator in response to Batfan's comment.
@Batfan , in this video we see a case similar to this one : https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000w/discussions/DCP000225c . S/he (I think it´s a young female, but I´m not sure) is checking something on the ground with its trunk and taking some leaves...at the same time s/he swings its legs 😃
I had to google Hokey Cokey 😄 !!
Posted
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by Batfan
Thanks for the link Nuria. Interesting!
Posted
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by Batfan
Hi Nuria,
I recently came across another clip of an elephant waving its foot ( ACP000czxt ) and have been reading around the subject a little. An article on the Nat Geographic site seems to think that it's a signal to others that it wants them all to move on in the way that its pointing, whereas the LA Times (and another site I can't remember) talks about it being part of the process of 'listening' to seismic sounds through its feet. In your experience, would you agree with either or both of these?Posted
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator
Hi Jane,
hmmm, interesting. To me, the "hey guys follow me this way" option published by the Nat. Geographic is absolutely wrong. And I would even say that this is a typical anthropocentric assertion. If you look at the video before ACP000czxs , you will see that they all know exactly which way to go 😃. I never heard or read about this explanation before, I will do some research about it...
If I had to choose, I would say number 2., "listening to seismic sounds", but I don´t want to choose 😉 . Honestly, I don´t think that it´s neither one reason nor the other. When eles. "listen" to infrasounds, they do it with their "Pacinian corpuscles" located in the cushions of their feet, that´s why I would expect to see a more horizontal movement, parallel to the ground. Instead, this elephant is just swinging her leg in a relaxed way, waiting for the next ele. to come.
do you remember this blog entry about the elephant feet? : http://chimpandsee.blogspot.de/2016/12/elephanttuesdays-elephants-feet.html
Posted
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by Batfan
Many thanks Nuria, that clarifies things for me. The lesson of this for me, I suppose, is don't blindly accept opinions from the more 'popular' publications but spend a bit more time trawling the more serious scientific stuff.
I have to confess that although I did usually follow your elephant blog, I must have missed that particular one. I shall go back and re-read them all.Posted
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator
Jane, would you share with me the link to the site where you read about this "follow me this way" behaviour? I really don´t want to discredit anyone, but I really got confused about this explanation. I would love to discuss about it with some ele. experts.
Maybe I am the one who is completely wrong and elephants really have a "navigation system" in their feet 😛
Thanks!!
Posted
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by Batfan in response to NuriaM's comment.
Hi Nuria, The article is at https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/04/24/elephants-communicate-in-sophisticated-sign-language-researchers-say/ (the bit I was talking about is at the end). When I look back at what I wrote before, I realise I should have said that the article states that foot swinging was part of the 'lets go' signal (along with body pointing and vocal rumblings) . I can see that what I wrote implies that foot swinging alone is the signal. Many apologies if my sloppy writing was misleading.
Posted
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by Felpa
Hello,Nuria. You wrote butt & more for the image ACP000djqk. The elephant raises a leg a lot, for what I seem to see. What behavior could this be? Greetings.
Posted
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by NuriaM scientist, moderator
Hi @Felpa ,
this is a very interesting behaviour...but you know what? I was thinking that maybe I propose you a challenge here:
instead of giving you a direct answer, I would like you to guess what you think that this ele. could be doing... do you take up the challenge?
Why do you think s/he is raising her back leg? do you think something is calling her attention? just give me the first thing that comes to your mind, even if you think it´s nonsense! anything is allowed...I will give you a detailed explanation afterwards, and you will see that you know more about elephants than you think 😉
I give you a clue: we have already seen this "leg behaviour" but from a different perspective 😛
...and today I am feeling very creative (interesting for a Monday 😃 ), and I thought that it might be a good idea to pin a thread with "challenges" where you guys can give your two cents on any interesting ele. videos to ask about, what do you think?
Posted
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by Batfan
Hi Nuria,
Another query. In ACP000drn0 an elephant briefly inspects the camera then walks away with its tail held stiffly upwards. Is this a sign that its worried?Posted