Do Elephants Truly Mourn Their Dead? Exploring Elephant Grief

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Written by Jennifer Geer

Published: November 15, 2024

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Elephants touching each other gently (greeting)
Johan Swanepoel/iStock via Getty Images

Elephants are known for being wildly intelligent and incredibly social. They’re also one of the few animals — aside from humans — that grieve for their dead. They form tight social bonds with their peers, and when one of them dies, they have been recorded behaving as though they’re mourning the loss.

Are the Elephants Truly Mourning?

Elephant, African Elephant, Herd, Africa, Walking

Herds of elephants have been seen gathered around and mourning a deceased elephant.

People are known to engage in something called anthropomorphism, which happens when we attribute our feelings to those of animals, even though it may not explain the animal behavior. Is that what’s going on when we watch this video? Are we projecting our feelings and behaviors onto the elephants? To find the answer to that question, scientists have conducted research to find out if elephants indeed mourn for their dead.

A recent study conducted on Asian elephants in India revealed that not only did they grieve for dead calves, but they also buried them. In one instance, scientists witness the herd trumpeting and roaring loudly over the grave of the baby elephant. After spending about 40 minutes at the gravesite, the elephants departed and were never seen near the burial grounds again.

In many cases, scientists have seen elephants touching, caressing, sniffing, and nudging a deceased elephant with their trunks. While nobody can know for certain what’s going on inside the animals’ minds, the elephants have been seen gathered around a corpse, either trumpeting loudly, keeping a quiet vigil, or resting their trunks on the body.

Do Elephants Cry?

Chasing Elephant in the Masai Mara

Did you notice while watching the video that between the eyes and ears of many of the elephants was a wet patch of skin? This is the location of the elephants’ temporal glands. These glands secrete an oily substance that is known to occur when the elephants are experiencing intense emotions. While these aren’t tear ducts, and the elephants aren’t actually crying, they do stream from their glands when feeling strong emotions.

The Strength of Elephant Bonds

two fighting elephants at a water hole in the dusty desert of Etosha National Park, Namibia

Elephants form very close bonds and live in tight-knit social groups. The herd is led by the matriarch of the group, usually the oldest female. Herd size can vary from around 10 all the way up to over 100. Herds are made up of females and their calves. Males will stay with their families until they are around 12 to 15 years old when they form a small group with other bachelors.

Elephants are social creatures and need interactions with members of their own species to thrive. Today, we know that keeping an elephant alone in a zoo causes depression for the animal. Ethical zoos follow guidelines to keep elephants in social groups because being with others is as important to elephants as it is to humans. An elephant alone in a zoo would be similar to a human prisoner kept in solitary confinement.

Elephants Have Names for Each Other

Elephant twins - two baby elephants with mother

Naming is not something we attribute to animals. And yet, recently, scientists have found, using computer algorithms, that elephants have distinctive calls for other elephants. By human terms, this does mean they indeed have names for each other. This new understanding helps us to realize we are just beginning to understand the depths of elephant intelligence and social bonds.

Do Elephants Understand Death?

wild elephants, mother and son

Although we can’t ask elephants about their understanding of death, scientists have done a lot of research into this question. We know when they encounter deceased elephants, they investigate them with their trunks, they sometimes vocalize loudly, and their temporal glands may stream indicating strong emotion. Video after video has captured elephant behavior around dead members of their herd.

Elephants have also been observed pausing silently when walking past a place where a loved one died. While their behaviors appear to mimic human behavior at a funeral or a wake, scientists must be careful not to overly interpret animal behavior by attributing human feelings. However, one thing is certain, elephants have strong reactions when another elephant in their social group dies, which seems very much like a person mourning.


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About the Author

Jennifer Geer

Jennifer Geer is a writer at A-Z Animals where her primary focus is on animals, news topics, travel, and weather. Jennifer holds a Master's Degree from the University of Tulsa, and she has been researching and writing about news topics and animals for over four years. A resident of Illinois, Jennifer enjoys hiking, gardening, and caring for her three pugs.

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