ArticlePrimates; journal of primatology2020
Behavioural responses of free-ranging Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) towards dying and dead conspecifics.
Article in Primates; journal of primatology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Knowledge transmission, culture and the consequences of social disruption in wild elephants.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Pooled it
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- Unveiling animal death cognition: the role of social systems.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Emotional pain in non-human mammals: from neural circuitry and opioid signaling to dysthymia-like states, grief-like behaviors, and physiological dysregulation.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Review
- Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation.Learning & behavior · 2025Review
- Article
- Emotions spread like contagious diseases.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Elephants as an animal model for self-domestication.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Physiological plasticity in elephants: highly dynamic glucocorticoids in African and Asian elephants.Conservation physiology · 2023Article
- Incentive disengagement and the adaptive significance of frustrative nonreward.Learning & behavior · 2022Review
- Thanatology in the northern muriqui (Brachyteles hypoxanthus).Primates; journal of primatology · 2022Article
- Viewing the rare through public lenses: insights into dead calf carrying and other thanatological responses in Asian elephants using YouTube videos.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Staring death in the face: chimpanzees' attention towards conspecific skulls and the implications of a face module guiding their behaviour.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) grieve over the loss of a conspecific.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Emotional contagion in nonhuman animals: A review.Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science · 2022Review
- Neurobiology of Loneliness, Isolation, and Loss: Integrating Human and Animal Perspectives.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
- The Chemical Ecology of Elephants: 21st Century Additions to Our Understanding and Future Outlooks.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- Responses to death and dying: primates and other mammals.Primates; journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reactions to dying and dead conspecifics have been observed in many non-human animals. Elephants, particularly African elephants, are thought to have an awareness of the death of their conspecifics, as they show compassionate behaviour towards others in distress. However, there is a paucity of scientific documentation on thanatological responses displayed by Asian elephants. Here, we report three detailed, directly observed cases of free-ranging Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) responding to dying and dead conspecifics. Behavioural responses were recorded opportunistically and described as pre-, peri- and post-mortem phases based on the status of the individual before, near or after its death. In all three observations, elephants showed approach and exploratory (sniffing and inspecting) behaviours, and epimeletic or helping (physically supporting dying calves) in pre- and peri-mortem phases. We also recorded high-frequency vocalizations (trumpets) by an adult female in the presence of a dying calf. Our observations indicate that, like their African counterparts, Asian elephants might experience distress in response to the death of conspecifics, and may have some awareness of death. This information furthers our understanding of the emotional and cognitive complexities of highly social elephants, and contributes to the growing field of elephant thanatology.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.