Urine, not a waste after all !!!
A recent study has showed that African elephants have the ability to recognize the chemical characteristics given off by urine, thus are also able to use their strong sense of smell to keep track on whereabouts of family members. Elephants who leave traces of urine on tree trunks in the course of their journey away from their original colony, can easily tip siblings and parents who remember the smell of that elephant when they were living in that particular colony. The March 2007 study conducted by Richard Byrne, from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, implicated placing urine samples from females along paths of 36 different elephant families. A female elephant taking part of the study, showed little interest in urine samples that were associated with a group other than her own, but stopped and elongated its trunk if the smell of the urine seemed familiar.
Based on the collection of data from this study, it was concluded that African elephants have the the ability to keep track on 30 other elephants, and at least 17 in which are females.
Posted by Vanessa Raphaël (group D)
posted by PWH @ 1:36 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Interesting topic. I wonder if this is a similar behavior to dogs marking their territoy via urination. I also wonder where this strong sense of smell evolved from. It would be interesting to find out the physiological makeup of this unique behavior. What is in the urine that gives each elephant such a uniqely distinct smell? Do electrolytes and minerals like Na, Ca, and K concentrations have anything to do with it? How are elephants' brains and olfactory systems different that they can recognize and distinguish different unrine samples, or could we learn to do the same thing over time. Good post, but I would hear a bit more about the details of this fascinating behavior.
Posted by: T. FitzGerald
I have never heard of this before. Do you know of any animal that preys on the elephant to also track this smell? I can't wait to read more on this.
Posted by: Julie Hachey
This is pretty amazing that elephants can keep track on up 30 individuals by their urine. How do the elephants behavior change once they recognize an individual.
-Tom Farese
This is indeed a very interesting topic but it would have been helpful for me to see a comparison of this trait of elephants to other animals. The grammar of the first sentence is a bit off, making the meaning unclear, but I think I get the general gist. What sort of evolutionary advantages do you think this provides?
Posted by Sarah Kaz
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