More to elephants than we knew, including how they greet friends

Elephants flap their ears, wag their tails and trumpet to greet their companions, a study has found.

The largest living land mammals also rumble, roar and reach out their trunks when reunited with friends, according to the research.

The study, which was published in Communications Biology, found that African elephants use different combinations of gestures that may promote individual recognition and social bonding.

Previous research has reported that elephants often engage in greeting rituals involving vocalisations and physical actions. However, it has been unclear whether these physical actions are deliberate forms of communication, and how actions and noise are combined during greetings.

The study, led by Vesta Eleuteri and Angela Stoeger, of Vienna University, looked at noises and physical actions used during elephant greetings.

Nine African elephants, which are endangered in the wild, were observed while semi-captive on savannah in the Jafuta Reserve, Zimbabwe, between November and December 2021.

During that time, the authors observed 89 greetings consisting of 1,282 different behaviours, of which 1,014 were physical actions and 268 were vocalisations.

The authors found that the elephants, which can weigh up to seven ton, greeted each other with specific combinations of sounds and gestures, such as rumbles with ear flapping or ear spreading.

These were combined with seemingly less deliberate physical movements, such as tail raising and waggling.

The combination of rumbling and ear flapping was the most common form of greeting, although this was more frequently used between females than between males. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2024)