Imagine your great grandmother always picking which restaurants
your sisters, aunts, and mother will go to while your teenage brother leaves
the family and joins a group of other men…
How do elephants pick a leader? Who is next in the chain of
command? This blog will answer your questions about dominance in elephants.
Like many animals, elephants form a hierarchy within their social
structure, thereby reducing conflict over resources (such as food, water, and
space). In elephants, a matriarch (the
oldest and wisest female) leads her bond group of related females to find food
and water and to avoid predators. If the herd becomes too large for the
available food or water supply, some of the females might split off from the herd
and form their own groups, each headed by an older relative. In this way, we
know that elephants live in fission-fusion societies. However, scientists are
still investigating the complexities of elephant social structure.
Matriarchs have great memories for where
water is located.
Dominance in males is a little different than that in
females, or cows. Males, or bulls, form bachelor herds when they reach sexual
maturity. For example, while the dominant cow is the herd leader, the dominant
bull is usually the individual that mates with the most females and beats out
other males in contests of strength. Interestingly, dominant bulls who are in
musth tend to remain in musth (and maintain a higher production of
testosterone) longer than younger, less dominant bulls. Read more about musth
here: bit.ly/1eJSCyj.
Male elephants may become aggressive
when they go into musth.
Photo by: Lisa Barrett
In male elephants, there is a possibility of a takeover. Bulls
who enter musth but are lower-ranking may challenge the dominant individual to
gain a temporary access to females who are in estrus. In fact, being in musth
gives males an advantage over non-musth males, because a chemical secretion
signals to females that they are ready to mate. This process, in which
different bulls enter musth and get access to females, allows for a fair system
of which males get to mate and also makes the population genetically diverse. Interestingly,
an alternative reproductive strategy has evolved in which males enter musth
when dominant males are not in musth.
Fighting over access to females is risky. It usually
involves two males clashing together their long, ivory tusks, rearing on top of
one another, and perhaps sustaining injury (including breakage of tusks) or
even death. The winner usually gains priority access to females—talk about
making sacrifices in the name of love!
Two male African elephants fight with
their tusks.
Photo by:
Caitlin O'Connell and Timothy Rodwell
It is important for conservationists to remember that poaching wild elephants not only causes a traumatic instant for the families of the elephants being killed, but it also has devastating, long-term consequences. After all, if the eldest female (or male) elephant is no longer part of the herd, she cannot impart her knowledge to her family members, and so younger elephants have no leader from which to learn. This has already proven to be catastrophic for young male African elephants who, without an older male to guide them, became highly aggressive and attacked many humans and rhinoceroses. Therefore, the wisdom of dominant individuals is critical for the rest of the herd to learn how to behave and survive.
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References:
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