Asian elephants mourn and bury dead babies – scientists
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Photo: goinyk/DEPOSITPHOTOS
Indian researchers found that Asian elephants they mourn loudly and bury the dead cubs – it resembles human funeral rites.
Researchers discovered five burials of baby elephants in the northern Indian region of Bengal in 2022 and 2023. The corresponding study was published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, it is reported Phys.org.
According to scientists, the herd carried the deceased child to the burial place, and then buried it in the ground with its feet up.
At one such funeral, the herd loudly bellowed and trumpeted around the buried baby.
“Through observation, digital photography, field notes and autopsy reports, we can hypothesize that the baby elephants were buried in an abnormal recumbent position, regardless of the cause of death.”says the study.
Elephants hid their cubs in irrigation canals on the territory of tea plantations, hundreds of meters from the nearest human settlements. Traces of 15-20 animals were found around the graves.
The authors of the study note that the death of baby elephants occurred due to natural causes: in none of the five cases was there direct human intervention.
Burials with elephants concern only cubs, because the animals would not be able to carry other adults.
Scientists have long known that elephants are highly intelligent and social creatures, but burial traditions have only been cursorily studied in the African species.
Researchers have observed that some wild elephants in Africa and Asia visit the bodies of their dead (as if visiting a grave). However, in these five cases, they demonstrated different behavior.
The elephants left the burial site for 40 minutes and then avoided returning to the area by choosing other routes.
We will remind you that the Asian elephant is a species related to the mammoth that lives in 13 countries of South and Southeast Asia. Subspecies of Asian elephant are Indian, Sumatran and Ceylon.
Asian elephants are very social, but tend to form smaller herds than African elephants.
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