African Elephants (Loxodonta africana and L. cyclotis) Fact Sheet: Behavior & Ecology

Active day and night

• Feeding accounts for most activity
  • Elephants feed an average of 16 hours/day
    • Forest elephants are browser-frugivores
    • Bush elephants are grazer-browsers
  • Peak feeding
    • Morning, afternoon, and around midnight (Estes 1991)
• Sleep
  • Slumber 4-5 hours out of every 24 (Estes 1993)
    • Not always in a single, continuous session (Eltringham 1982)
  • Sleep often occurs 03:00-07:00 (Eltringham 1982)
  • Sleeping and waking is synchronized within the herd
• Rest
  • Occurs in early afternoon
• Drink and bathe daily, typically
  • May go several days without drinking

Home range size

• Variable
• Range: 6 to 580 square miles
• Factors influencing size
• Quantity and quality of food available
• Age and sex of elephants within the region
• Required range area is difference for bulls and by cows with their young

Range Overlap

• Group ranges do overlap (Shoshani 1992)

Social animals

• Matriarchal social structure
• Social groups consist of females (cows) and their offspring
• Group composition
  
• Often a single female with her offspring
• May include a matriarch, her sisters, and their offspring
• When groups get too big, “bond groups” split off but maintain a loose association
• Savannah/bush elephants
• Extended family groups
• Members number from 4-14
• Forest elephants
• Nuclear family groups
• Members number from 2-4
• Males (bulls)
• Leave the family group in their teens
• Often solitary
• Individuals wander alone or form small dynamic groups
• Savannah/bush elephants form transient associations while forest elephants are more solitary

Social organization

• Cows form complex social bonds
• Individuals may form bonds with dozens of clan members and hundreds of acquaintances
• Social hierarchy
• Typically determined by "seniority"
• In a group, the highest ranked elephant is the "tallest"
• Smaller animals flatten ears and keep head lowered, moving backward and sideways to demonstrate their submission

No evidence of territoriality (Shoshani 1992)

Aggression

• High intensity aggression is rare
• Most interactions between mature bulls is low key
• Threat behaviors
• Aggressor turns toward adversary and spreads ears, standing as tall as possible
• Head nodding, jerking, and shaking, are part of most threat displays
• Forward trunk swish, with trumpeting or air blast is a threat
• Fight behavior
• Consists of trunk-wrestling, pushing, and tusking

Play

• Participants
• Calves often play
• Male calves are the most likely to leave mothers to play
• Older females also play
• Forms of play
• Lots of head sparring, mounting, charging, shoving, and chasing
• Females chase and play running games; may also “attack” imaginary enemies

Tactile

• Family members communicate through touch
  • May rub with a foot or slap with the trunk, often while standing
  • Uses of the trunk
    • Trunk used in greeting
      • May be held out to an approaching elephant as a greeting
      • A lower-ranking animal will insert its trunk tip into the other’s mouth
    • Other uses of the trunk
      • An individual will caress another
      • Mother may guide her calf by gripping its tail with her trunk
      • Two individuals may intertwine trunks
      • Trunk used to check reproductive status

Vocalization

• Click here for audio of the African Elephant. Provided by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Macaulay Library.

• Sound diversity
  • 4 different sounds are produced
    • Each is distinguished by gradations in pitch, duration, and volume
  • Rumbling
    • Frequencies variable; most are below human hearing
    • Functions
      • Important to sexual behavior; imparts distance information
        • Louder sounds may carry over several kilometers
      • A signal to more, or a warning
      • Softer rumbles may promote group cohesion
        • Quiet, though audible calls, heard during feeding events
      • Social greeting
        • Rumble or growl may be given as a greeting
      • Elevated, more bellowing rumbles given when in fear or pain
  • Trumpeting
    • Blowing through nostrils
    • Indicates excitement
  • Squealing
    • Juvenile distress call
  • Screaming
    • Adult distress call
    • Often in conjunction with trumpeting
    • Possibly meant to to intimidate another
• Infrasonic communication
  • Discovered by Katherine Payne, based on observations of elephants raised under managed care made in 1984
• Species specific characteristics
  • Savannah/bush elephants vocalize at 14-24 hertz
  • Forest elephants vocalize around 5 hertz

Olfaction/Scent Marking

• Scent glands
  • Temporal gland secretions "musky"
    • Secretions is under autonomic control
    • Produced when an individual is excited or anxious

Walking

• Adults generally walk (McKay 1973)
  • Only run when fleeing danger or charging
  • Move legs on same side of body, even at higher speeds (Hutchinson et al. 2003; Hutchinson et al. 2006)
    • Left hind, left front; right hind, right front (Hutchinson et al. 2006)

• Basic gait
  • 3 feet on the ground most of the time
  • At least 1 foot always on ground
  • Body has a rolling motion and head bobs during fast walk

• Speed
  • Slow walk
    • About 0.5 kph (0.3 mph) or slower (Ngene et al. 2010; Chamaillé‐Jammes et al. 2014; Troup et al. 2020)
      • When eating, resting, socializing in one location (Ngene et al. 2010)
    • 2 to 3 kph (1 to 2 mph) (Hutchinson 2006)
      • When shifting between resource patches
  • Faster walk
    • 6 to 8 kph (4 to 5 mph) (Estes 2012)

“Running”

• Unusual hybrid gait for moving fast (Hutchinson et al. 2003 in Asian elephant)
  • Legs support bouncing motion, and joints bend more as speed increases (Hutchinson et al. 2003; Hutchinson et al. 2006)
• Primarily increase speed by taking more strides (Hutchinson et al. 2006; Estes 2012)
• Maximum speed
  • Up to about 26 kph (16 mph) (Hutchinson et al. 2003; Ngene et al. 2010; Estes 2012)

Jumping

• Cannot jump (Estes 2012)
• Have difficulty crossing some ditches/trenches
  • Generally unable to cross gaps wider than about 2 m (7 ft)

Other postures

• Able to kneel, squat, roll, and sit on haunches (eg, when getting up and lying down) (Estes 2012; Poole et al. 2013)
• Can balance back legs to reach browse up high (Estes 2012)

Herbivore competitors

• Coexist with 3 other large mammal species (Eltringham,1982)
• Buffalo (Syncerus), bush pig (Potamochoerus), bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus)
• Elephants typically ignore other herbivores
• Such as antelopes, warthogs and zebras

Carnivore predators

• Elephants seek out lions in their vicinity to chase them away

Elephants as "keystone" species

• Elephants impact on animals and plants
• Elephants may stop the progression of grassland to forest or shrub lands
• Grasses support grazing ungulates which are in turn food for carnivores
• Elephants maintain trails used by all species
• Elephants keep down vegetation around water holes
• Process creates safe drinking spots for all species

Elephant calf playing in the mud.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Caloi (1992)
Estes (1991)
Estes (1993)
Eltringham (1982)
Moss (2000)