Elephants Console One Another By Genital Touching and Sympathetic Noises

During times of distress, Asian elephants trumpet sympathetic noises and use their trunks to massage their downtrodden comrade's face, mouth and genitals, according to a new study that offers the first empirical evidence of consolation in elephants.

Writing in the open-access journal PeerJ, Joshua Plotnik, a conservation biologist at Mahidol University in Thailand and chief executive of the nonprofit Think Elephants International, reports with his colleagues that this evidence of consolation among elephants adds the species to a very short list of animals known to console one another.

In an interview with the PeerJ blog, Plotnik said that elephants made an interesting choice for studying consolation because they are well known for their intellect, ability to show empathy and their social complexity, but that much of the evidence surrounding these observations was anecdotal rather than empirical.

"We observed how elephants interacted with others in distress at an elephant camp in Thailand," Plotnik said. "We found that elephants adopted the emotional state of, touched and called out to those in distress, and did so in ways that seemed to mirror the consolatory behavior we see in other species. Elephants often rumbled or chirped toward those in distress, and reached out to touch the distressed individual's mouth and face. If a distressed elephant put their ears out and straightened their tail, the bystanders often did the same."

Plotnik likened the behavior to the sort of empathy and consolation chimpanzees show one another in times of distress.

"Chimpanzees often embrace or hug victims of fights, and touch each other's faces for reassurance," he said. "To our knowledge, this is the first study of consolatory behavior in elephants, and suggests that the complexity of elephant social behavior may be on a par with that of the great apes."

Genital touching, however, might seem a little out of context for a consolatory gesture.

"Elephants do a lot of touching of others with their trunks. Genital touching is a way for elephants to identify others, and in this case, it may also be a way for the elephants to identify the behavioral state of the others," Plotnik told the Los Angeles Times.

"I think the genital touching, in combination with other touches, specifically in this context, serves to reassure the other elephant," Plotnik said. "We also see the elephants put their trunks into each others' mouths, which seems to be a way of saying, 'I'm here to help you.'"

Plotnick and his colleagues studied 26 Asian elephants in captivity at at 30-acre elephant sanctuary in northern Thailand. The team spent about one year observing and recording instances when an elephant displayed a stress reaction, and the responses from other nearby elephants.

Potential stress-inducers were varied and included events such as a dog walking past, a snake or other potentially dangerous animal rustling the grass, or the presence of another, unfriendly elephant, the researchers said in a statement.

"When an elephant gets spooked, its ears go out, its tail stands erect or curls out, and it may emit a low-frequency rumble, trumpet and roar to signal its distress," Plotnik said. An elephant offering consolation showed a tendency to vocalize as well as touch.

"The vocalization I heard most often following a distress event was a high, chirping sound," Plotnik said in a statement. "I've never heard that vocalization when elephants are alone. It may be a signal like, 'Shshhh, it's okay,' the sort of sounds a human adult might make to reassure a baby."

Plotnik acknowledged the work was limited by only including captive elephants, but he indicated the potential for future research and elephant education.

"This study is a first step," he said. "I would like to see this consolation capacity demonstrated in wild populations as well."

"I really believe that to save elephants and other endangered species, we must educate children about them," he said. "Part of our Think Elephants International curriculum is getting kids directly involved in the research we do, so they learn first-hand about these amazing animals. Elephants are incredibly majestic and there is still so much to learn about their behavior and intelligence."

Click here to see a video of the elephants colsoling each other.