African Elephants Use Their Acute Sense of Smell as Form of Communication, Study Says

African elephants (loxodonta africana) live in stable, socially complex, multi-female groups, characterized by female philopatry, male dispersal and linear dominance hierarchies. Elephant social behavior suggests that individuals use odor to monitor the sex, reproductive status, location, health, identity and social status of conspecifics. However, to date, it was not clear what fixed or variable information is contained in African elephant secretions, and whether odor encodes kinship or group membership information.

University of Queensland’s Professor Louw Hoffman and his colleagues studied 15 family groups of African elephants in Majete Wildlife Reserve, Malawi.

They found that smell was used to distinguish characteristics including age, health, reproductive status and family relationships between elephants.

“We tested the DNA, glands, urine and manure of 113 African elephants to identify family groupings,” Professor Hoffman said.

“We found a number of chemicals were common to group members, but others that were unique to each individual.”

“Elephants never mate with a sibling, even if they’ve been separated for years and can tell a strange elephant is close by from the smell of their manure or other excretions.”

Social behavior also suggests elephants use odor to monitor other pachyderms, both within and outside their herd.

“We observed elephants greeting each other by squealing and flapping their ears,” Professor Hoffman explained.

“We believe they’re pushing their pheromones towards the other elephant as a sign of recognition.”

“When elephants charge each other flapping their ears, rather than making themselves look bigger, we believe they’re blowing their pheromones as a warning not to mess with them.”

The elephants not only identify different smells quickly, but also retain them in their memory.

“Some of the animals in the study were bred in captivity, and one of the tricks they’d been taught was to take a tourist’s hat and smell it,” Professor Hoffman said.

“When the tourist came back hours later the elephant would be able to immediately identify who the hat belonged to.”

“Elephants could be trained to sense many things, including blood and explosives,” he added.

“These findings show elephants are complex creatures, and sound is not their only form of communication.”

“We see humans as the apex, but we now know elephants are one of many animals that have senses more finely attuned than ours.”

“There is a lot we can learn from the elephant.”

The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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KEM von Dürckheim et al. 2022. A pachyderm perfume: odour encodes identity and group membership in African elephants. Sci Rep 12, 16768; doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-20920-2