 Reference Base  Aimed object-throwing by a wild African elephant in an in... |
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| Location: |
Africa - Southern Africa - South Africa |
| Subject: |
Ecology - Interspecific Relations |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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While studying the various ways in which African elephants make use of their trunk, tusks and toes in different feeding situations, we witnessed object throwing in an interspecific and presumably antagonistic encounter, which we videotaped, in the Hluhluwe Game Reserve in November 1993. An elephant (a female as suggested by the head profile) approached a tiny and shallow temporary water puddle and, upon reaching the surrounding muddy area, sprayed some mud on her back. When a white rhino approached the puddle from the opposite direction the elephant reacted with ears spread, raised trunk and sniffing; the rhino stopped. Maximum distance between the two at first was about 20m and ranged from 15 to 20m over the following 15 mins where the elephant seemed to be in constant conflict between her interests in the water and the rhino. She alternately turned to the water, took some and squirted it over her sides, back or belly, and soon turned toward the rhino again with the head raised high up in alert posture. She twisted and untwisted the trunk touching her face, moved it behind her ears, into the mouth, over the tusks and again extended it towards the rhino. \then a combination of typical threat display elements were directed at the rhino: head-shaking, head-tossing, spreading and slapping the ears, and forward-trunk-swishes, some accompanied by an air-blast. Repeatedly she took up watery mud into the trunk, and then with an upward sway expelled it towards the subject of her threat. Several times - preparatory to waterthrowing - she charged at the rhino, stepping rapidly several metres towards it. Once she knelt down in the water with her forelegs but immediately got up again and made another thrust at her adversary. The rhino constantly faced the elephant; twice upon the elephant's forward launching it made a few steps backward, though most of the time it only moved its ears and less often its tail. As time went by the elephant came to stand on grass and forbes next to the water. Now she picked clumps of grass with the trunk and began to throw grass with roots and adhering soil, and even a bundle of forbs at the rhino. All missiles were precisely directed, but fell short of the rhino. The encounter came to an end when a herd of about 80 buffalo entered the scene to mudbath in the puddle. The elephant moved off and joined a passing group of another 4 elephants, while the rhino disappeared between the bushes..
Elephants may also be provoked by rhinos in particular. McDonald (cited in Beck 1980: 34) saw a captive African female elephant throw mud at a rhinoceros in an adjacent enclosure, and the famous huntress M. Trappe reported cases (cf. Lettow-Vorbeck 1957: 263) where rhinos in the wild have been attacked by elephants and - in contexts that were unclear - even stabbed with the tusks and killed.
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