ABSTRACT
Male Asian elephants in musth--an annual period of heightened sexual activity and intensified aggression--broadcast odoriferous, behaviourally influential messages from secretions of the temporal gland. From our observations in the wild, together with instantaneous chemical sampling and captive-elephant playback experiments, we have discovered that young, socially immature males in musth signal their naivety by releasing honey-like odours to avoid conflict with adult males, whereas older musth males broadcast malodorous combinations to deter young males, facilitating the smooth functioning of male society. As elephant--human conflicts can upset this equilibrium, chemically modulating male behaviour may be one way to help the conservation of wild elephants.
Subject(s)
Elephants/physiology , Sex Attractants/physiology , Sexual Behavior, Animal/physiology , Acetophenones/metabolism , Aging/physiology , Animals , Hexanols/metabolism , Honey , Ketones/metabolism , Male , Odorants , Sex Characteristics , Social DominanceABSTRACT
GC-MS analysis of extracts from temporal gland secretions of an African elephant has revealed the presence of several farnesol-related sesquiterpenes. Among these are (E)-2, 3-dihydrofarnesol (3), a bumblebee pheromone not seen before in mammals, and a rare component of a Greek tobacco, drimane-8alpha, 11-diol (4), never observed before in an animal.
