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Ashley Meneses
Writing 39C
Lynda Haas
24 July 2016
The Pack that Keeps Them Smart
Elephants are a well known species that many adore. The social groups of these species is
an important aspect of them. When going to zoos, safaris or even just look at videos online of
elephants, one will realize that elephants are usually never alone. The mothers are either with
their calves or a family of elephants are seen. Because of this, researchers have studied elephants
and their social groups. The social groups of elephants are very important in understanding their
behaviors and interactions with each other. The behaviors in their social groups also proves their
intelligence. There are research studies done on elephants by researchers such as Cynthia Moss,
Iain Douglas- Hamilton, and Vickie Fishlock.
Cynthia Moss is one of the researchers that does study on elephants and their behaviors.
She also started the Amboseli Elephant Research Project. In the article, Social Networks in
African Elephants, the research explains that elephants social groups go based off of their
seasons. The study explains, In the dry season, social groups tend to be less cohesive and
smaller during the wet season, families often travel in intact groups, whole families often fuse
with other families, and sometimes hundreds of animals can be found together in one continuous
aggregation. Elephants have a fission-fusion system during the seasons. The fission goes on
during the dry seasons when they travel in small groups and fuse in the wet seasons to create
large groups. This ties into an elephants intelligence.

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In 1983, researchers found that the reason why elephants social groups change during the
seasons is based on resources and decreasing competition for them (Moss 275). This brings in
the intelligence of elephants because it demonstrates how they do this for survival. Elephants
avoid having a lack of resources, so they fuse into big groups when the resources are abundant. It
is seen through many animals that survivorship is an important aspect and which is why there is
so much competition, so by elephants trying to avoid resource competition, they are smart
enough to minimize their social groups.
The article also explains that another aspect of the social groups of elephants is their
kinship. In 2006, researchers found that kinship is an evolutionary development of elephants
(Moss 275). They grow up traveling in groups and not alone. The fact that they grow up being in
a family group shows how united they are. This evolutionary development is another aspect of
survivorship and demonstrates how smart they are. By traveling in groups, elephants know that
they are much safer than traveling alone. The study explains, As a result, the costs and benefits
of sociality can accumulate through both direct fitness (survival advantage given to an
individuals own offspring) and indirect fitness (advantage given to the offspring of close genetic
relatives). The research explains that by them traveling in groups gives them survival
advantage.
When conducting this research, researchers studied the family line to study the
relationships of kinships and seasonality. The image below demonstrates how researchers did a
pedigree to test if the behavior of the social groups of elephants is based on the genetic and
evolutionary developments from the relatives. The image shows how they drew out the
relationships of the female elephants to each other. They tested the experiment on female

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elephants because females are the most known for kinship. Not only are they most known for
kinship, but elephants have a matriarch, which is the leader of the group. In elephants, females
are the leaders of the groups.

In the article, The Ties that Bind, it shows that they tested in 2006 if the possibility that
one social group fuses with another is based on genetic relatedness. The article states,
Relatedness also predicted temporary fusion between social groups; core groups were more
likely to fuse with each other when the oldest females in each group were genetic relatives. One
reason that groups fuse and split is through genetic relatedness. Even though some elephants
became raised in a different group, they end up fusing with another group if they have some type
of genetic relatedness. Something else that they found when doing this research is that Groups
that shared mtDNA were also significantly more likely to fuse than groups that did not share
mtDNA. Therefore, the fission-fusion system that elephants have is mainly based on their
relatedness to each other. The graph below demonstrates the genetic relatedness of social groups.

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Elephants are able to recognize many family members and friends. In Carl Safinas book,
Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, scientist Vickie Fishlock explains, Elephants
themselves recognize hundreds of individuals. They live in vast social networks of families and
friendships. Thats why theyre famous for their memory (Safina 16). Vickie Fishlock studies
social disruption and recovery in elephant families. The quote demonstrates how elephants live
in an environment of being together. The intelligence of an elephant is demonstrated through
their memory. This demonstrates that they have developed having good memory due to their
sociality.
The way that elephants make friendships with each other and join each others social
groups is by being compatible with each other (Safina 25). Fishlock explains, What causes
elephant friendships? Certain young ones like the same games and always play together. Certain
older individuals are compatible when they want to eat, when they want to sleep, where they
like to go, what kinds of foods they like. Elephants tend to make friends in their environments
because they like being in social groups. Moss explains, Elephants live their lives in
relationships that radiate into wide, layered social networks. This shows how communication

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within elephants is an important aspect in their social groups and one of the reasons that they
fuse into a group.

Elephants have a very good skill of recognizing each other. They recognize each other not
only through sight but also through sound. Zoologist, Iain Douglas-Hamilton that studies animal
behavior in elephants, explains, Each elephant in Amboseli probably knows every other adult in
the population. When researchers played the recorded call of an absent family member or bondgroup member, elephants returned the call and moved toward the sound (Safina 38). When
elephants recognize a familiar sound from their group, they follow the sound to go look for their
member. However, scientists also tested how they react when they do not recognize someone
from the group. Douglas-Hamilton explains, Played a recording of an elephant outside their
bond group, they didnt react noticeably. But when played calls of total strangers, they bunched

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defensively, raising their trunks to smell. When there is an elephant that is not part of the group,
the group reacts to the sound and tries to find out where it is coming from.
Elephants become very close to their social groups that the death of a member, especially
a matriarch, can cause them great agony and affect the group. Female elephants are the most
studied for social groups because the groups are not led by males, but by the matriarchs. Fishlock
explains, Their matriarchs death triggers, first, devastating psychological consequences. One
of the consequences is having the group split up. She continues to explain, Growing numbers or
a matriarchs death can cause families to slowly split up. This shows how much of an impact a
death can cause to the group.
Elephants can some times be aggressive or defensive towards other groups. According
the article, Social Dominance, Seasonal Movements, and Spatial Segregation in African
Elephants, elephants there can be agonistic behaviors towards other groups at times; However,
it is very low. The study, which was performed in 2006, explains, Agonistic interactions occur
at very low frequency and between-group agonistic interactions occur as frequently in relation to
point resources as for social reasons not associated with any resource. This demonstrates how
elephants do not get competitive over resources because of the fission-fusion system that they
have, but they have agonistic interactions for interactive reasons. When there does occur
agonistic interactions, then transitive dominant hierarchies form. The article explains, Despite
being infrequent and often of little immediate benefit, agonistic interactions among elephants do
lead to the formation of transitive dominance hierarchies both within and between groups. This
does not bring in competition for resources, but more rivalry between groups. When the
hierarchies develop within groups, then it becomes more of a problem because then there is
somewhat competition for resources.

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Researchers, Cynthia Moss, Iain Douglas- Hamilton, and Vickie Fishlock, showed
through various studies and research the behaviors and causes of the social groups of elephants.
Elephants are very intelligent animals that travel in groups for survivorship. The fission-fusion
system is also a smart survivorship technique that they carry. Traveling in social groups keeps
them safe from predators because they warn each other of danger. There is still current research
on elephants going on today. These studies from these scientists were from wild elephants;
However, there may be other factors that may impact their intelligence or social groups such as
human behavior.

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Bibliography
Archie, E. A., C. J. Moss, and S. C. Alberts. "The Ties That Bind: Genetic Relatedness Predicts
the Fission and Fusion of Social Groups in Wild African Elephants." Proceedings of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1586 (2006): 513-22. Web.
Inglett, Kelleen Leann. "The Use of Social Space with Respect to Rank : A Look into Female
African Elephant Behavior (Loxodonta Africana)." International Journal of Comparative
Psychology (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 57, No. 2943 (APRIL 16, 1909), pp. 436- 440
Polansky, Leo, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, and George Wittemyer. "Using Diel Movement Behavior
to Infer Foraging Strategies Related to Ecological and Social Factors in Elephants."
Movement Ecology Mov Ecol 1.1 (2013): 13. Web.
Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2015.
Print
Vance, Eric A., Elizabeth A. Archie, and Cynthia J. Moss. "Social Networks in African
Elephants." Comput Math Organ Theory Computational and Mathematical Organization
Theory 15.4 (2008): 273-93. Web.
Wittemyer, G., W. M. Getz, F. Vollrath, and I. Douglas-Hamilton. "Social Dominance, Seasonal
Movements, and Spatial Segregation in African Elephants: A Contribution to
Conservation Behavior." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Behav Ecol Sociobiol
61.12 (2007): 1919-931. Web.