Male African elephants have distinct personality traits, but also adapt their behavior to suit the social context, according to a study publishing December 4, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell at Stanford University and Harvard University Center for the Environment, Jodie L. Berezin of Utopia Scientific, U.S., and colleagues.
Many animals show consistent individual differences in behavior, sometimes described as 'personality' or 'temperament'. Elephants are highly intelligent and have rich social lives, and previous research has shown that captive elephants display distinct personality types. In the wild, females spend their entire lives in their family groups, but males disperse when they reach adulthood to join looser, all-male societies governed by dominance hierarchies.
To expand our understanding of personality traits in wild elephants, researchers observed the behavior of 34 male African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Etosha National Park in Namibia between 2007 and 2011. They identified five types of behavior that were consistently different between individuals, including aggression and dominance behaviors, friendly social interactions, and self-comforting. However, the elephant's behavior was also influenced by the social context. When younger males were present, other males were more likely to perform friendly and dominance behaviors.
In contrast, when a socially influential male was present, the other males performed fewer friendly social interactions. The most dominant and socially influential male elephants in the society performed aggressive and friendly social behaviours equally frequently. Younger males were more similar in temperament than older males, suggesting that their unique personalities develop as they age.
The study is the first to show that adult male elephants display distinct personality traits in the wild. Although they showed consistency over time, male elephants were also flexible, adjusting their behavior depending on the social context. The results also suggest that the most socially successful male elephants are those that strike a balance between aggression and friendliness, and that having mixed age groups within male elephant populations was extremely important to their wellbeing. A deeper understanding of wild elephant behavior could inform better conservation decision-making and improve the management of captive elephants, the authors say.
The authors add: "Male elephants display five distinct character traits (affiliative, aggressive, dominant, anxious, and calm) consistently across time and context, and are also distinct from each other in how they display these five character-traits."
