How do elephants communicate with each other?

According to a study published on Wednesday, December 5, 2007, an African elephant can recognize dozens of its relatives thanks to the smell of urine. It can also use the cathartic nose to find out where its relatives go.

Scientists found that elephants use their excellent memory and sense of smell to communicate with each other in the forest by recognizing each other's urine.

Researchers from the University of St Andrews studied how elephants find traces of 30 members of the herd when they move. Elephants often encounter this situation because their herd changes frequently and elephants do not follow a fixed group.

Psychologist Dr. Lucy Bates and Professor Richard Byrne discovered that elephants living in Kenya can identify members in its herd thanks to the smell of urine marked . They can not only use this ability to identify fellow humans, but also ' remember ' where each particular elephant has passed, or somewhere at a specific time.

(Photo: Physorg) tSome other animals can also identify humans with urine, but this is the first time that elephants have this special ability.

Professor Dick Byrne explains: 'For us, the search for 4 or 5 family members or friends when shopping together is not so difficult; But imagine that you have 20 or 30 people without a mobile phone! Elephants often move in groups with such numbers, the problem becomes even more difficult because their daytime vision is not good. Worse, their flock changes weekly members and each individual elephant does not go fixed together. '

'But elephants have two potential advantages over humans: superior sense of smell and a human memory cannot match.'

Working in Kenya with members of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, the researchers tested the ability to identify individuals with the smell of the elephant's urine. They found that elephants were very interested in urine samples of members who were absent from their families. In addition, the researchers found that the elephants tracked down the members of the group that are now traveling together and they were " surprised " to see that urine samples were "not in place" .

'We put urine marks in places where they could not appear, because the studied elephants actually left at the end of the herd. We realize that only when each elephant regularly remembers the position of each member and is able to identify each member from the urine, will they react differently in this case. In fact, our elephants clearly showed surprise with the urine samples of the members who were behind them at the time, ' Dr. Bates explained.

Professor Byrne said: 'For most visitors to Africa, the least interesting thing for them is to look at the elephants when they stop to' pee '. But with elephants, urine marks them to keep them in contact with even 30 other members of the large family and frequently change them. This is a point that we must admire. '

This study was published on the Royal Society Society.