For a statistician, death is only a figure indicating the dynamics of a population, and the causes of death are analyzed only for the sake of clarifying its relative significance. For an elephant, as for a person, death takes on a different meaning because it affects the behavior of the living. They are united by strong family ties and make every effort to help sick or dying relatives.
Many zoologists, including Charles Darwin, believed that animals experience strong emotions. I have no doubt that when an elephant dies, the rest of us experience what we call sadness. Alas, science cannot yet measure or simply determine emotions in humans, and there is nothing to say about animals.
Elephants do not stop trying to help their brother even after his death. One day, when Mhoja and I were looking for new roads to the Marang forest, we heard the cries of a baby elephant in trouble somewhere at an altitude of two or three hundred meters on the slope of the Endabash cliff. They came from the left; We carefully walked up the steep slopes to the place where the screams were coming from. Through the thick foliage the head of a female was visible, lying in an uncomfortable position on the ground. Her eye was open, but she did not move. There was a tree in front of me, and I climbed up it.
A sad picture opened before my eyes. The adult female was lying on her side with her back leg stuck between a rock and a thick tree. The head fell back at an incredible angle. She was dead. Three baby elephants of different sizes stood nearby. The eldest moaned and occasionally uttered prolonged screams. The second stood motionless, burying his head in his mother’s body. The smallest elephant calf, not yet a year old, made pitiful attempts to suckle his mother. Then the elder knelt down and began pushing the corpse with his head and tiny tusks, trying in vain to move it. I watched them for a quarter of an hour. Then a gust of wind carried my scent to them, and they slowly moved away.
I approached the corpse. It was still warm, and the flies had not yet taken possession of it. This means that the tragedy happened quite recently. When she fell, the elephant broke several trees and tore large stones out of the ground. We climbed a slope of one hundred and thirty meters, to the point where traces of her last steps remained. She stepped into a hole covered with greenery, lost her balance, rolled down without catching anything, and remained motionless. The baby elephants found her with great difficulty, having made a long detour due to the extremely inconvenient terrain.
They did not seem to understand that she was dead, but they felt something was wrong, and perhaps they did not believe in the irreversible nature of her death.
Harvey Croze and his photographer friend saw an old female die among a family group in the Serengeti. She agonized almost all day in a beautiful corner, cut by valleys, where we immobilized the young male. At first Harvey noticed that she was struggling to follow the group; when the elephant fell, everyone surrounded her, took turns putting the tip of her trunk into her mouth and pushed her, trying to lift her up. The male who made the most effort was the one who happened to be with the females and babies; several times he drove others away and single-handedly helped the agonizing animal. The elephant died among her relatives, and they remained near her for several hours. The male, whose efforts were futile, showed an example of completely unique behavior. He perched himself on top of the dead female, as if he wanted to copulate with her, and then left with everyone else. And only one female, who apparently had a particularly close relationship with the deceased elephant, stayed for a long time and reluctantly left only at nightfall.
Bill Woodley, a ranger at Aber Dare National Park in Kenya, witnessed an even more astonishing attachment to a dead animal. The females and babies defended the corpse of the killed young female for three days. An amazing story is given by Rennie Ver in his book “The African Elephant”. The mother did not abandon the decaying corpse of her newborn elephant and carried him on her tusks for several days. As far as I know, only female baboons carry the corpse of their baby for a week or more.
This reaction to a lifeless body helps save those elephants who have simply lost consciousness. Rescuers are interested in the recovery of the sick animal, which again begins to play its assigned role in the family group. It is again engaged in the upbringing and joint protection of the young, and if this is the matriarch, then she remains the head and in difficult moments the whole family is helped out by the experience she has accumulated. A zoologist brought up on the traditions of natural selection has no choice but to explain the apparently altruistic behavior of the savior by subsequent benefits for him; if an animal tries to save another, its behavior can be explained by the desire to save a fellow tribesman, that is, an animal of the same blood and with the same heredity.
It is more difficult to find a reasonable explanation for the incredible, almost magical influence of even completely decomposed corpses on elephants.
After ten days of rotting under the acacia trees of the savanna, the fourth sister Toron turned into a black cavity covered with skin, through which bones protruded. The legs were eaten by hyenas. Every day I noted how quickly the decomposition process was occurring. After the rains, the process went faster, and within a few weeks the blackened fibers that had previously been the contents of her stomach should have disappeared under the grass and bushes.
On the morning of the tenth day, southern elephants appeared in the sparse forest of Ndala. What will be their reaction to the elephant's corpse? I parked the Land Rover near the remains and waited. After some time, the matriarch Clytemnestra appeared with her family. They were the fierce inhabitants of the south, and their dominions in many places passed into the dominions of the Toron sisters. Clytemnestra, of course, knew the fourth sister Toron. Noticing my car, she turned her ears and glanced sideways in my direction, and then calmly continued her way. I knew her for four years, and during that time she became noticeably more tolerant of cars. The elephants, with the exception of the irreconcilable Toron sisters and a few others, have become accustomed to the tourist boom and the increasing number of cars appearing even in the wildest corners of the park. Clytemnestra took a few more steps, and suddenly the wind brought to her the smell of a corpse. She turned around, extended her trunk like a spear, spread her ears like two large shields, and moved straight towards the smell, looking like some kind of medieval projectile. Three other females were moving behind her; Everyone, raising their heads with concern, surrounded the corpse. At first they sniffed carefully, moving their trunks. Then they walked along the body, touching and examining every protruding bone. The tusks aroused particular interest. The females picked up their pieces, turned them over and threw them down. All this time they knew about my presence. Never before have they stood so close to me. Suddenly one of the young females took two steps towards me and shook her head angrily; the others adopted her mood. They assumed several unconvincingly threatening poses and left. I regretted that I had settled so close to the corpse; I think if I hadn’t been here, they would have been studying the remains for a long time.
People often talk about elephant cemeteries, the places where they come to die. But this myth is not true.
I had to find elephant carcasses throughout the park. There were also rumors that elephants were very interested in the corpses of their relatives; another fairy tale, I thought and threw it out of my head. However, now, having seen with my own eyes the behavior of elephants, I began to look for serious evidence and found the first confirmation from David Sheldrick. In 1957 he wrote about Tsavo:
“Apparently, the strange habit of elephants of carrying the tusks of their dead comrades can be considered proven. In East Tsavo, a curator collected a large number of tusks from elephants that had died both from arrows and from natural causes. In most cases they were found seven hundred to eight hundred meters from the corpse. In other cases, they were smashed against rocks or trees. Can a hyena pull aside a tusk that sometimes weighs up to 50 kilograms, and why would it do this? The lack of tooth marks and broken tusks suggest that elephants may be the culprit.”
Alan Moorhead quoted David Sheldrick in the Sunday Times, but Richard Carrington later argued in his book Elephants that this was simply an African tale... and was based on tribal legends, and there were no witnesses to such elephant behavior. However, the facts continued to accumulate. For example, this is what was observed in 1958 in one national park in Uganda:
“Near Paraa we had to kill an elephant with a serious wound to its front leg. Two elephants immediately approached the corpse. They slowly walked around the corpse, carefully examining it with the tip of their trunk, but without touching the dead animal. Then one of them made several futile attempts to remove the tusks.”
Clytemnestra's behavior and many other facts convinced me of the need to conduct a simple experiment and check whether living elephants really show a special interest in the bones of their dead brothers. What was seen was hardly an accident. After finding the remains of the elephant, I transported the skin, tusks and bones to the reservoirs of the Ndala River, where many family groups went to drink. In most cases, having found bones, the elephants became extremely excited: they raised their tails, spread their ears to the sides, crowded around, studied the find in detail, lifted some bones and turned over others with their feet. Usually they formed such a dense circle that it was not visible what they were doing, only occasionally a bone rose above their heads. The reaction of six groups out of eight that passed by the bones near the river further deepened the mystery of the behavior of those two groups that did not pay attention to the dirty bones, as if they did not exist.
Later, during the filming of a television film about the life of Mapyara elephants, we conducted a similar experiment in the sparse forest of Ndala. This time they decided to place the bones on one of the busiest paths, and the film crew hid on the leeward side, from where, using a telephoto lens, they could film the entire scene without disturbing the elephants. I used the remains of a male that was killed in the southern part of the park during his foray into a cornfield. About twenty minutes later, a large group of females and babies appeared, led by a stern matriarch - it was Boadicea and her family. At first it seemed that the group would pass by without noticing anything. Then a breeze carried the smell of the corpse to the elephants. The family group turned at once, and everyone carefully but decisively surrounded the corpse. The first row, standing shoulder to shoulder, came close to the remains. Ten writhing trunks, like black angry snakes, rose and fell, ears moved restlessly. Each elephant seemed eager to be the first to touch the bones. They then began a thorough sniffing session. They quietly moved some bones with the tip of their feet. The bones clattered against each other like pieces of wood. The tusks attracted particular attention; the elephants picked them up, took them into their mouths and passed them to each other. The young male grabbed the heavy pelvic girdle with his trunk and dragged it about fifty meters, and then threw it away. They took turns rolling the skull. At first, only the largest animals could approach the skeleton. Boadicea approached later than the others; Having pushed everyone aside, she made her way to the center, picked up one tusk, twirled it for a minute or two, and then carried it away in her mouth. The others followed her. Many elephants carried bones in their mouths, which they threw about a hundred meters away. Virgo was the last to leave. Noticing me, she approached, holding a rib in her mouth, shook her trunk and walked away.
The elephants leaving with the bones resembled necromancers gathering for some ceremony, and made a strange impression.
George Adamson, in his book Bwana Game (Lord of the Game), gives an interesting version of the relationship of elephants to remains. He had to kill an elephant that was part of a group of males when it was chasing a man with the clear intention of killing him. After allowing local residents to take as much meat as they wanted, Adamson transported the remains a kilometer away from the scene. That same night, the elephants paid a visit to the corpse, picked up the scapula and tibia and moved it exactly to the place where the animal died. It is difficult to say whether these were his companions of yesterday, but if the transfer of bones to the site of death is not an accident, it apparently has significance for elephants.
Nan Parker's observations once again confirmed that elephants are able to find the place of death of a relative, even if his remains were moved to another place. One day, as Parker was flying a small family cropping group toward hunters from an airplane, they suddenly turned and came to an area where the ground appeared to be scorched. Parker recalled that these were the remains of an elephant that he had “liquidated” three weeks earlier. Although the elephants were disturbed by the presence of the aircraft, they stopped and explored the area with their trunks for a few minutes, and then moved towards their fate.
Along with the habit of sniffing and carrying bones, the behavior of elephants that engage in “funerals” is also surprising. I did not see the “funeral”, but there are many stories from credible observers, so such behavior can be taken as reliable fact. Elephants bury the dead, and sometimes the living, even if they are not their brothers. Let me give you a few examples.
George Adamson relates an incident involving an old Turkana woman whom he knew personally. The elephants buried her alive. One evening she and her son were returning home. Her son was delayed, but he told her to move on. The half-blind old woman soon got lost. After sunset she lay down under a tree and fell asleep. A few hours later she was awakened by an elephant standing nearby and running its trunk along her body. She froze, numb with fear. Soon other elephants came and threw a pile of branches from neighboring trees on her. The old woman was found the next morning: a shepherd heard the woman’s faint cries and freed her from under the branches.
Professor Grzimek gives four stories of elephants, male and female, who covered people they killed with plants or dirt.
The “hero” of the most curious of these cases was one male. This happened in 1936 in Albert National Park (now Virunga). A tourist with a camera approached one male, despite repeated warnings that the animal was extremely dangerous. The tourist showed stubbornness, and the elephant attacked him. Unfortunately, the man was limping and did not have time to escape. A park employee managed to capture the moment he turned to run away. The elephant caught up with the man and knocked him down with his trunk. Witnesses to the incident claim that he died before he even touched the ground. But for greater certainty, the elephant knelt down and pierced the body with a blow of its tusk under the shoulder blade. When people returned to the scene of the tragedy, the tourist’s body was covered with plants. I was lucky enough to meet Professor L. Van den Bergh, who avenged the death of a tourist by tracking down and shooting a killer animal. It turned out that the reason for the elephant's aggressive nature was a deep, festering wound on the head, apparently from a bullet.
But elephants bury not only human corpses. A 1956 report from a Kenyan park describes the case of a dead rhinoceros that, judging by the tracks around it, was dragged along by elephants for some time and then covered with grass and branches.
Another researcher, George Schaller, talks about similar behavior of the Indian elephant in his book The Deer and the Tiger. Schaller tied a buffalo to a tree as bait for the tigers. The tigress killed the victim and began to watch the feast of the cubs from the side. Soon an elephant appeared from the bushes. The cubs ran away, and the elephant broke branches and covered the remains of the buffalo with them.
There are stories about elephants burying their relatives. Myles Turner was once a professional hunter. During one safari, his client killed a large male that was part of a group of six animals. Live elephants immediately surrounded the dead one. Miles said that the elephants would disperse in a few hours, and suggested that they move away and get something to eat. When they returned, there was only one male near the corpse. The hunters drove him away. Approaching the corpse, they were surprised to see that the wound was covered with dirt, and the carcass was covered with earth and leaves.
Irwin Basho, one of the first scientists to study elephant ecology, observed a similar phenomenon in Uganda, but here the females and babies were the heroes. He had to immobilize the elephant and attach a radio transmitter to it. The operation was a failure, but he made valuable observations. For the first female chosen, the dose turned out to be too high. The rest of the group formed a protective cohort and kept him away from the animal, which died because he was unable to administer the antidote to it. The matriarch of the group led the elephants away, and then returned and covered the dead elephant with branches and grass.
In conclusion, I will cite the story of the ethologist Wolf-Dn-trnha Kume, who observed African elephants at the Kronenburg Zoo in Germany. When the male became aggressive, he began to throw straw and various objects over the fence at the scientist. One day Kume lay down on the ground on the other side of the fence. And the elephant threw so much straw that it completely covered the lying man.
Douglas-Hamilton I. and O. Life among elephants. M., “Science”, 1981, p. 241-249.
As is known, only elephants, humans and Neanderthals have burial rituals. Typically, an elephant's lifespan is 60–80 years. If an elephant is sick, members of the herd bring him food and support him while he stands. If the elephant is dead, they will try to revive it with water and food for some time. When it becomes clear that the elephant is dead, the herd falls silent. They will often dig a shallow grave and cover the dead elephant with mud and branches, and will then remain near the grave for several days. If the elephant had a very close relationship with the deceased, then it may be depressed. A herd that accidentally encounters an unknown, lonely, dead elephant will exhibit a similar attitude. Additionally, there have been cases of elephants burying dead humans in the same manner that they found.
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Until now, in many popular science publications you can find statements that elephants bury their dead relatives in special places called elephant cemeteries. Scientists have long tried to discover at least one such “necropolis”, but in vain - their searches were unsuccessful. And all because this statement is nothing more than a myth.
It is interesting that the myth about elephant cemeteries is no longer only the property of folklore of those countries where gray eared giants live - even in the last century it migrated to the pages of both popular science and scientific articles. In many reference books, encyclopedias and guidebooks you can find a phrase that: “...Elephants are the only living creatures (other than humans) who bury their dead in strictly defined places called elephant cemeteries. Every elephant, sensing the approach of death, goes there, where he dies, and his relatives throw leaves, earth and various debris over his remains.”
Needless to say, the picture turns out to be touching, but, alas, completely implausible. Let's start with the fact that cemeteries (if we understand by this word a strictly defined burial place) are quite widespread in the animal world. In particular, they are found in social insects - bees, wasps, ants and termites. If an individual dies inside a hive or anthill, then the deceased is pulled out and taken to the place where all other waste is thrown away (for from the point of view of insects, a corpse is nothing more than garbage). The same is done with those who have passed into another world close to the refuge.
Such precautions are quite justified - if the corpse decomposes inside the nest, then fungi and bacteria that are dangerous to living members of the colony can settle on it. This is why, by the way, such cemeteries are located quite far from the residential area, as well as from the paths along which insects usually move. By the way, scientists believe that ancient people had the custom of burying their dead in certain places, as well as all the “horror stories” associated with cemeteries, arose precisely because of the same thing - a corpse rotting near a shelter is a potential source of infection. Therefore, it is logical to hide it somewhere away and do everything possible to prevent the most curious members of the community from visiting this place.
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But elephants do not have such cemeteries, which, in general, is not surprising - after all, these animals do not have a permanent “registration”; they travel all the time. Therefore, a deceased member of the pack is not dangerous to the living - they will simply leave the place where death overtook him and will not appear there for some time. Thus, they are not at risk of contracting an infection. And if so, then there is no need for a special cemetery either.
But where did this myth come from? In fact, it was invented just to explain a rather funny fact - people rarely find the corpses of elephants. For example, biologist John Sanderson, who ran an elephant capture station for 13 years, writes in his book that he saw the remains of dead elephants only twice, and even those died as a result of accidents, not far from the station itself. Many other researchers confirm his observations - it is almost impossible to find the remains of a giant in the jungle or savannah.
But why does this happen? Yes, because as soon as an elephant leaves for another world, crowds of carrion lovers of various sizes, from ants to hyenas, immediately flock to its body. By the way, it was found that most often elephants die near water bodies, because before death the giant experiences thirst and, having gathered his last strength, reaches the life-giving moisture. However, after death, his body ends up firmly stuck in coastal mud or silt deposits. And then predatory fish, turtles and crocodiles, who cannot miss such a free “dinner”, reach it without any problems.
According to the notes of naturalists who observed the process of “disposal” of an elephant carcass, it often takes about six hours for only the bones of a giant to remain (and if the elephant died at sunset, then even less - a pack of hyenas, numbering about a hundred individuals, will deal with the remains of an elephant in about two to three hours). By the way, the bones also don’t last long - scavengers, trying to get to the bone marrow, chew them, and insects take away the fragments. As a result, within a day after death, nothing remains of the huge giant - only remnants of hair, skin and the hardest parts of the bones.
In addition, the birth and spread of the myth was also facilitated by observations of the very strange behavior of elephants. So, once scientists saw how elephants remained near the body of their deceased brother for about three days. There were also cases when these giants covered the corpse of a relative with grass and branches, and also carried the found remains over long distances. However, all these are isolated cases, and, therefore, it can be considered that the behavior of elephants in the situations described was atypical.
Yes, in general, and it is quite explainable: the transfer of the remains took place when the elephant died near a reservoir, and the relatives simply wanted to clear the river of several tons of rotting flesh. Throwing grass at the corpse occurred at the moment of agony - the elephants did not understand that their relative was dying and sought to alleviate his suffering from the heat, which is the most unbearable for a sick elephant. And the fact that these giants can stay near the corpse of their relative for a long time is also not surprising - elephants are always waiting for stragglers. This, by the way, proves that even here the elephants did not understand that their brother had already passed on to another world.
It is also possible that the origin of the myth was influenced by an interesting discovery made in the 18th century in Angola. Naturalists discovered a place containing piles of elephant bones. However, later bones of other living creatures, in particular human ones, were also discovered there, as well as images of local gods made of stone and wood. Then it became clear that this was not an elephant cemetery at all, but a place of ritual sacrifices (many African tribes have the custom of sacrificing bones of various animals, including elephants, to their gods).
Later, the popularization of the myth was facilitated by the essays of some travelers who were attracted by the secrets and wonders of exotic countries. Thus, at one time, a lot of noise was made by the message of a certain naturalist A. M. Mackenzie, who allegedly noticed that in the Elgeyo and Souk districts in Uganda, where he hunted, shot elephants always went to the north. One day he followed the tracks of a seriously wounded animal, but lost them on the banks of the Perkwell River. From this he concluded that the elephant, doomed to death, swam across the river to get to the island that was in the middle of it.
At night, the naturalist himself crossed to the island and, having found the animal there, finished it off. At the same time, he discovered 20 elephant skeletons on the island, but without ivory (that is, tusks). However, there was an explanation for this - according to Mackenzie, they were taken away by local residents who knew about this, as well as about other similar cemeteries, but kept this information secret. The naturalist stayed on this island for a week and saw that sick elephants arrived there every day, clearly in order to spend their last days here or die outright.
This story was immediately perceived by scientists as implausible - elephants can determine the location of a person from afar, and, accordingly, wounded animals are unlikely to go to die where this dangerous creature is located, however, attempts were made to verify the information reported by Mr. Mackenzie. As one would expect, no island was found in the indicated area, which is an elephant cemetery. Apparently, the above-mentioned naturalist simply retold the legend of the local tribes, supplementing it with fictitious details with his own participation to give the story a touch of authenticity.
As is known, only elephants, humans and Neanderthals have burial rituals. Typically, an elephant's lifespan is 60–80 years. If an elephant is sick, members of the herd bring him food and support him while he stands. If the elephant is dead, they will try to revive it with water and food for some time.
When it becomes clear that the elephant is dead, the herd falls silent. They will often dig a shallow grave and cover the dead elephant with mud and branches, and will then remain near the grave for several days. If the elephant had a very close relationship with the deceased, then it may be depressed. A herd that accidentally encounters an unknown, lonely, dead elephant will exhibit a similar attitude. Additionally, there have been cases of elephants burying dead humans in the same manner that they found.
You can find similar information in hundreds of places on the Internet. But what really?
Are there elephant cemeteries?
John Burdon Sanderson, head of the state elephant capture station in Mysore, in his book “13 Years Among the Wild Beasts of India”, claims that, walking the length and breadth of the Indian jungle, he saw the remains of elephants only twice. Moreover, these animals did not die from natural causes - one of them drowned in the river, and the female died during childbirth. Local residents whom Sanderson interviewed also could not remember a single dead elephant in the area.
So where do elephants disappear when they die a natural death? Residents of Africa are sure that elephants are buried by their brothers. Indeed, elephants are not indifferent to their sick or injured relatives. If a sick elephant falls, healthy elephants help it get up. After the death of a fellow elephant, elephants reluctantly leave the place of his death and remain near the corpse for several days. This three-day watch is described in the book Among the Elephants by Oriya and Douglas Hamilton.
Sometimes giants cover the body of their dead brother with grass and branches - you must admit, this is very similar to a funeral. If a herd of elephants comes across the remains of a long-dead elephant, they sometimes pick them up and carry them a considerable distance. But these actions are unlikely to be widespread. In Ceylon, it is believed that dying elephants go into the difficult forest thicket near the ancient capital of this island, the city of Anuradhapura. Residents of South India claim that the elephant cemetery is located in a lake, which can only be reached through a narrow passage, while for Somalis the place is located in a deep valley surrounded by impenetrable forests.
There are many legends, but nothing is known for certain, and over decades of careful searches, not a single elephant cemetery has been discovered. True, at the beginning of the 18th century in Angola, researchers discovered huge piles of elephant tusks, topped with wooden idols and human skulls, but, according to scientists, this cemetery is the work of man.
Eyewitness accounts.
Elephant Hunter A.M. Mackenzie, who hunted in the Elgeyo and Sooke districts of Uganda, claimed that shot elephants always went north. One day, deciding to finish off a seriously wounded animal, he went after it, but lost it on the trail of the Perkwell River. Deciding that the dying elephant had managed to cross to an island located in the middle of the river, Mackenzie followed him. To his surprise, the hunter actually found a mortally wounded animal there and finished it off. Looking around, Mackenzie discovered 20 elephant skeletons on the island, but without tusks. According to the hunter, the tusks were taken by local residents, who kept secret knowledge about this and other similar cemeteries. To test his guess, Mackenzie stayed on the island for a whole week. During his stay there, old and sick elephants came to the island every day. Some died immediately upon arrival, others lived out their last days and hours on the island. One day, a hunter saw how a dying elephant was accompanied to the river by his healthy relative, but at the same time the old elephant swam across the river alone. The hunter decided that the cemetery he accidentally discovered was one of the smallest. After asking local residents - the elders of the African Maasai tribe, Mackenzie learned that in the Kawamaya district there are much larger cemeteries of these amazing giants.
Following Mackenzie, the guess about the existence of elephant cemeteries was confirmed by the German wild animal catcher Hans Schomburgk. Schomburgk hunted elephants in Tanzania, at the mouth of the Ruaha River. Having decided to trace the path of the sick male, he followed him to that part of the steppe that was constantly covered with water. Having entered knee-deep water, the animal stood there motionless for 5 days, until Schomburgk finally shot him.
As can be seen from the accounts of these two witnesses, water plays an important role in the formation of an elephant cemetery. This is also confirmed by the Englishman William, who was engaged in capturing and taming elephants in Burma for more than 20 years: “After an elephant reaches the age of 75 or 80 years, a gradual decline in its strength begins. His teeth fall out, the skin on his temples becomes flabby and sags. Once upon a time, together with the entire herd, he covered large spaces and devoured his 300 kilograms of green fodder per day. Now he is no longer able to make long journeys. He leaves the herd. During cold seasons, it is easy for him to find food, which consists mainly of bamboo.
When the hot months come, the search for food becomes difficult. In April or May, he goes to some pond, which is located above a mountain gorge. There is still plenty of green food. But the pond dries up every day and eventually turns into a muddy pit. The elephant, standing in the middle, lowers its trunk into wet sand and sprinkles it on itself. But then one fine day a strong thunderstorm breaks out. Stormy streams of water rush down from the mountains, carrying pebbles and uprooted trees. The decrepit elephant can no longer resist these forces of nature. He buckles his knees and soon gives up the ghost. The waves carry away his corpse and throw it into the gorge...”
Until now, in many popular science publications you can find statements that elephants bury their dead relatives in special places called elephant cemeteries. Scientists have long tried to discover at least one such “necropolis”, but in vain - their searches were unsuccessful. And all because this statement is nothing more than a myth.
It is interesting that the myth about elephant cemeteries is no longer only the property of folklore of those countries where gray eared giants live - even in the last century it migrated to the pages of both popular science and scientific articles. In many reference books, encyclopedias and guidebooks you can find a phrase that: “...Elephants are the only living creatures (other than humans) who bury their dead in strictly defined places called elephant cemeteries. Every elephant, sensing the approach of death, goes there, where he dies, and his relatives throw leaves, earth and various debris over his remains.”
Needless to say, the picture turns out to be touching, but, alas, completely implausible. Let's start with the fact that cemeteries (if we understand by this word a strictly defined burial place) are quite widespread in the animal world. In particular, they are found in social insects - bees, wasps, ants and termites. If an individual dies inside a hive or anthill, then the deceased is pulled out and taken to the place where all other waste is thrown away (for from the point of view of insects, a corpse is nothing more than garbage). The same is done with those who have passed into another world close to the refuge.
Such precautions are quite justified - if the corpse decomposes inside the nest, then fungi and bacteria that are dangerous to living members of the colony can settle on it. This is why, by the way, such cemeteries are located quite far from the residential area, as well as from the paths along which insects usually move. By the way, scientists believe that ancient people had the custom of burying their dead in certain places, as well as all the “horror stories” associated with cemeteries, arose precisely because of the same thing - a corpse rotting near a shelter is a potential source of infection. Therefore, it is logical to hide it somewhere away and do everything possible to prevent the most curious members of the community from visiting this place.
But elephants do not have such cemeteries, which, in general, is not surprising - after all, these animals do not have a permanent “registration”; they travel all the time. Therefore, a deceased member of the pack is not dangerous to the living - they will simply leave the place where death overtook him and will not appear there for some time. Thus, they are not at risk of contracting an infection. And if so, then there is no need for a special cemetery either.
But where did this myth come from? In fact, it was invented just to explain a rather funny fact - people rarely find the corpses of elephants. For example, biologist John Sanderson, who ran an elephant capture station for 13 years, writes in his book that he saw the remains of dead elephants only twice, and even those died as a result of accidents, not far from the station itself. Many other researchers confirm his observations - it is almost impossible to find the remains of a giant in the jungle or savannah.
But why does this happen? Yes, because as soon as an elephant leaves for another world, crowds of carrion lovers of various sizes, from ants to hyenas, immediately flock to its body. By the way, it was found that most often elephants die near water bodies, because before death the giant experiences thirst and, having gathered his last strength, reaches the life-giving moisture. However, after death, his body ends up firmly stuck in coastal mud or silt deposits. And then predatory fish, turtles and crocodiles, who cannot miss such a free “dinner”, reach it without any problems.
According to the notes of naturalists who observed the process of “disposal” of an elephant carcass, it often takes about six hours for only the bones of a giant to remain (and if the elephant died at sunset, then even less - a pack of hyenas, numbering about a hundred individuals, will deal with the remains of an elephant in about two to three hours). By the way, the bones also don’t last long - scavengers, trying to get to the bone marrow, chew them, and insects take away the fragments. As a result, within a day after death, nothing remains of the huge giant - only remnants of hair, skin and the hardest parts of the bones.
In addition, the birth and spread of the myth was also facilitated by observations of the very strange behavior of elephants. So, once scientists saw how elephants remained near the body of their deceased brother for about three days. There were also cases when these giants covered the corpse of a relative with grass and branches, and also carried the found remains over long distances. However, all these are isolated cases, and, therefore, it can be considered that the behavior of elephants in the situations described was atypical.
Yes, in general, and it is quite explainable: the transfer of the remains took place when the elephant died near a reservoir, and the relatives simply wanted to clear the river of several tons of rotting flesh. Throwing grass at the corpse occurred at the moment of agony - the elephants did not understand that their relative was dying and sought to alleviate his torment from the heat, which is the most unbearable for a sick elephant. And the fact that these giants can stay near the corpse of their relative for a long time is also not surprising - elephants are always waiting for stragglers. This, by the way, proves that even here the elephants did not understand that their brother had already passed on to another world.
It is also possible that the origin of the myth was influenced by an interesting discovery made in the 18th century in Angola. Naturalists discovered a place containing piles of elephant bones. However, later bones of other living creatures, in particular human ones, were also discovered there, as well as images of local gods made of stone and wood. Then it became clear that this was not an elephant cemetery at all, but a place of ritual sacrifices (many African tribes have the custom of sacrificing bones of various animals, including elephants, to their gods).
Later, the popularization of the myth was facilitated by the essays of some travelers who were attracted by the secrets and wonders of exotic countries. Thus, at one time, a lot of noise was made by the message of a certain naturalist A. M. Mackenzie, who allegedly noticed that in the Elgeyo and Souk districts in Uganda, where he hunted, shot elephants always went to the north.
This story was immediately perceived by scientists as implausible - elephants can determine the location of a person from afar, and, accordingly, wounded animals are unlikely to go to die where this dangerous creature is located, however, attempts were made to verify the information reported by Mr. Mackenzie. As one would expect, no island was found in the indicated area, which is an elephant cemetery. Apparently, the above-mentioned naturalist simply retold the legend of the local tribes, supplementing it with fictitious details with his own participation to give the story a touch of authenticity.
Here is another version of the origin of myths. The fact is that the lifespan of an elephant is limited by the degree of wear of its molars. Plant food is very tough, and when an elephant loses its last teeth, it faces death from starvation. In addition, as an animal ages, its muscles atrophy, and it can no longer lift its trunk, and therefore is unable to drink. In old age, elephants are plagued by diseases such as arthritis, tuberculosis, and septicemia. As a result, the weakening giant has no choice but to look for deep places to get to the water. And along the banks of reservoirs there is always plenty of lush vegetation that can support its fading strength.
However, due to its mass, the elephant gets stuck in the mud and can no longer move. His body is gnawed by crocodiles, and the water carries away the skeleton. And since more than one elephant comes to the watering hole to quench their hunger and thirst, this place can really become an elephant cemetery. In addition, when talking about elephant cemeteries, one cannot help but recall the exceptional ability of the jungle to dispose of any organic remains. Scavengers - hyenas and birds - pounce on the corpse and destroy it with amazing speed. Interestingly, kites and marabou, for which the elephant’s skin is too thick, penetrate into its body through the mouth or anus. And the absence of expensive tusks is explained by the love of porcupines for the bone marrow contained in them.
“As a result of man's pursuit of ivory, all of Africa is a continuous cemetery for elephants,” wrote one of the many elephant hunters. But this is a metaphor. In fact, according to zoologists, elephant cemeteries, where countless reserves of precious ivory are stored, do not exist. Nature itself helps elephants hide after death.
So, as you can see, there are no elephant cemeteries. Or, to be more precise, such a cemetery is the entire territory where these giants live. For African elephants this is Africa, for Indian elephants it is Southeast Asia. However, these animals do not perform any special actions on their deceased brothers that could be mistaken for a funeral rite...
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