In several cases studied in India, the herd carried the dead baby elephant by its trunk and legs before burying it on its back. And in one case, elephants trumpeted loudly around the remains.
Published on March 1, 2024 3:01 p.m. Updated on March 1, 2024 3:01 p.m
Reading time: 1 min
Elephants in Jim Corbett National Park in India, May 7, 2017. (CORDIER SYLVAIN / HEMIS.FR / AFP)
According to a study by Indian scientists, Asian elephants bury their young after death and mourn them loudly. The behavior of the pachyderms is reminiscent of human burial rites. According to the study published Feb. 26 in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, researchers in northern Bengal, India, identified five locations in 2022 and 2023 where a baby elephant was buried by elephants each time.
The five baby elephants, aged between three months and one year, all died of organ failure. In each case, the researchers found that the herd had carried the dead baby elephant by its trunk and legs before burying it on its back. “Through timely observations, digital photographs, field notes and autopsy reports, we suggest that the remains were buried in the eerie manner of a recumbent figure, whatever the reason for the child's death,” the study says.
“No direct human intervention”
In one case, the herd trumpeted loudly around the baby elephant lying underground, the study authors wrote. The study explains that only the young are buried, so transporting adults through the herd is “not feasible” due to their size and weight. Authors Parveen Kaswan and Akashdeep Roy said their research found that “no direct human intervention” occurred in the burial of each of the five baby elephants.
Clear footprints of 15 to 20 elephants were observed around the burial sites and on the soil under which the remains were buried. The elephants buried the calves in the irrigation canals of tea plantations, a few hundred meters from human settlements. Elephants are known for their social and cooperative behavior, but calf burying has only been “briefly studied” in African elephants. According to the study, the phenomenon was still unexplored among their Asian relatives.
Asian elephants are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of endangered species. An estimated 26,000 of them live in the wild, mostly in India, but there are also a few in Southeast Asia. Outside captivity, they live an average of 60 to 70 years.