Some elephants urinate, defecate, or release fluid from their temporal glands while greeting one another. These striking behaviors are part of a broader social exchange that can also involve rumbles, roars, trumpets, ear movements, trunk reaches, and touch. Researchers have observed these actions together, but have not decoded them as a fixed set of messages.
What does an elephant greeting look like?
Elephant greetings are not a single gesture. In separation-and-reunion observations of semi-captive African savannah elephants, researchers recorded combinations of sound, movement, touch, and smell. Behaviors included rumbles, roars and trumpets; spreading or flapping ears; reaching with the trunk; body contact and tail movements; and the release of urine, feces, or temporal-gland fluid. Some actions were directed toward a recipient depending on whether that elephant was visually attending.
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The study describes behavior observed during reunion events, not a universal ritual. An elephant need not perform every action, and the observation that an act occurs during a greeting does not by itself establish that it is a deliberate signal with a known translation.
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In a 2024 study of semi-captive African savannah elephants, 71% of 89 greeting communication events included urination, defecation, or temporal-gland secretion. That percentage applies to the events recorded in that particular study setting; it should not be read as a rate for all elephants or all greetings. Eleuteri and colleagues, Communications Biology (2024).
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What might scent tell elephants?
Elephant odors can carry social information, and urine and temporal-gland secretions are among the sources researchers examine. Studies have considered whether odor helps elephants recognize individuals or group membership. Those are plausible roles, but the chemical contents and precise function of emissions during female greetings have not been empirically established. A scent released during a reunion cannot yet be translated as a specific message such as “I missed you.” A 2022 study of odor, identity, and group membership in African elephants.
Research on chemical signals in elephant reproduction likewise describes meaningful chemical communication while noting that more work is needed to identify the signals involved and understand their full functions. Review indexed by PubMed (1998).
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How do male elephants greet one another?
Research on wild male African elephants at social hotspots describes trunk-mediated contact with another elephant’s mouth, temporal gland, or genital region as greeting behavior. Such close contact may combine touch with scent assessment. Researchers have discussed possible information about identity, sexual status, phenotype, feeding history, or emotional state, but these remain proposed functions—not verified meanings for every trunk contact. Study of trunk-mediated greeting behavior in male African elephants (2021).
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