After an Earthquake, These Elephants Knew Exactly Who to Follow: Mom
The 5.2 magnitude earthquake that shook Southern California on Monday may have provoked a collective shrug from humans in the region, but a few elephants in San Diego took the tremor very seriously.
A video taken at the San Diego Zoo shows the action unfold: Five African elephants are basking in the morning sun until the camera begins to shake and a tremor sends the animals scrambling toward one another.
A few moments later, almost in unison, the elephants form a tight circle, with the older elephants surrounding the younger calves. The herd remains in formation through the end of the video, facing outward with ears extended, as if on high alert for threats.
The earthquake, which struck around 10 a.m. on Monday, had its epicenter near Julian, Calif., about 60 miles northeast of San Diego. There were no reports of injuries or damage, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Office.
The response from the elephants was a defensive position known as 'bunching,' and is a typical reaction to threats, said Joyce Poole, a conservation biologist with a doctorate in elephant behavior from Cambridge University. 'They feel more secure when they are close together,' she said.
When bunched, elephants often have their tusks pointed out, ears extended, eyes opened wide and trunks out, trying to smell potential threats. The formation, 'like the spokes of a wheel,' Dr. Poole said, gives the group a 360-degree view of their surroundings to pinpoint any danger. The younger members instinctively seek out the most protected position inside the circle, she said.
In San Diego, the earthquake put on display some particulars of this group's dynamics, Mindy Albright, a curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, told The Associated Press.
A female calf, known as Mkhaya, sought the safety of the inner circle of elephants, but a male calf, named Zuli, squared up with the matriarchs on the outside, striving to display his courage and independence, Ms. Albright said. Two of the older female elephants — Ndlula, Zuli's mother, and Khosi, a teenage elephant who helped raise him — can be seen patting him on his sides and face with their trunks as if to say 'things are OK,' and 'stay back in the circle,' Ms. Albright said.
Researchers believe elephants are able to feel tremors through their feet, allowing them to sense tiny vibrations — caused by thunder, calls from other elephants or stampedes by other animals — even at long distances. 'They detect that animals are running, and therefore there is something potentially to be fearful of,' Dr. Poole said.
Elephants are also highly intelligent, and they form complex social bonds that allow them to increase their chances of survival, learn skills and pass on knowledge.
'It's a pretty democratic society,' Dr. Poole said. 'Everyone has a say, and everyone can suggest a course of action. But when there's trouble, everyone will pay attention to the matriarch and do what her behavior recommends.'
In the video, Dr. Poole said, the largest elephant can be seen running toward the camera, while all the other elephants take their cues from her.
This type of behavior can also be observed in humans, she added. When facing danger, humans often run for safety, 'and safety usually means somebody older, or somebody you feel who can give you guidance or lead the way.'
The animals repeated the behavior about an hour later during an aftershock, The A.P. reported, but went back to their daily routines when the situation seemed safe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Oxford University to host global climate and human rights summit launch event
A panel of speakers from global climate leadership has been announced for a launch event in Oxford ahead of a climate summit. The University of Oxford will host the launch of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit 2025 at the Sheldonian Theatre on Wednesday, June 4. Featuring keynote speeches, panel discussions, and performances, the event will bring together leading voices from policy, activism, business, and academia to explore the relationship between climate change and human rights. The launch event will take place ahead of a 24-hour global online plenary extending into World Environment Day on June 5. The evening will begin with introductory remarks from Professor Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Professor Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford (Image: Contributed) The event will be hosted by Justin Rowlatt, climate editor at the BBC, and will include a rotation of speakers discussing how climate change impacts human rights and how these rights can inform responses to the climate crisis. The panel of speakers will include Lord Alok Sharma, a former COP26 president known for leading international negotiations resulting in the Glasgow Climate Pact. Vanessa Nakate, a climate justice activist and founder of the Rise Up Movement, who advocates for equitable climate solutions focusing on African communities, will also speak. Kate Raworth, an economist and co-founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, whose work explores sustainable development within planetary boundaries, and Paul Polman, a business leader and former CEO of Unilever, known for championing responsible corporate climate action, will speak too. The audience will also hear from Professor Lavanya Rajamani, professor of international environmental law at Oxford, whose research and legal work supports climate-vulnerable nations in international negotiations, Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, who leads the UK's independent advisory body on reaching net zero, and Dr Omnia El Omrani, a medical doctor and climate-health policy advocate, who has represented youth voices at recent UN climate summits and focuses on the health impacts of climate change. The event will be livestreamed and will conclude with a handover to partners at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji to begin the global programme at 10pm. The 24-hour plenary will include contributions from university hubs around the world, partners at UN Human Rights, and the International Universities Climate Alliance. The Oxford Mail and Oxford City Council are looking to find Oxford's climate heroes with this year's Oxford Climate Awards. Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon at the Oxford Climate Awards 2024 (Image: Joe Baker) They are looking for individuals or groups who champion environmental sustainability across categories including innovation in climate action, sustainable business, and green transport.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
What dinosaur has 500 teeth? Inside the conveyer belt jaw of Nigersaurus
What dinosaur has 500 teeth and replaced each and every one of them every 14 days? With 15 times more teeth than the human set of 32, Nigersaurus taqueti hacked through low-lying vegetation with choppers like a lawn mower, paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Paul Sereno told National Geographic just years after he and colleagues first described and named the dinosaur. About as heavy as an adult African forest elephant, this dinosaur would have weighed about two tons and stretched about 30 feet long from nose to the tip of its tail. The herbivore wandered lowlands of western Africa about 105 million years ago in what's now the Republic of Niger. Nigersaurus was one of the most effective plant-eating creatures to have ever evolved. Here's what you need to know about Nigersaurus and its toothy way of life. The bones of Nigersaurus first came to the attention of paleontologists in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1965 and 1972, French paleontologist Philippe Taquet used previous fossil reports to confirm the suspected bonebeds in Niger. His search turned up multiple prehistoric species new to science, such as the sail-backed, duckbilled dinosaur Ouranosaurus and the gharial-like crocodile Sarcosuchus. One site, Gadofaoua, was especially promising and brimming with the bones of large dinosaurs. Taquet did not describe them in detail or name them, as there were so many other fossils in the area to study. The bones would wait 30 years for another team of paleontologists to dig in further. (Was there a dino the size of a hummingbird?) In 1997, a field team organized by Sereno, who is also a National Geographic Explorer, rediscovered the bones at Gadofaoua. 'The locality is quite remote, and the temperatures and shifting sands mean that it can be a challenging place to work,' says University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson Mantilla, who helped name Nigersaurus. Each piece of bone was extremely delicate. Some were so thin, light could shine through them. But after careful excavation, preparation, and study, it was clear that Taquet's sauropod was a new dinosaur unlike any seen before. In 1999, Sereno, Wilson Mantilla, and colleagues presented a scientific description of the plant-eater and named it Nigersaurus taqueti in honor of its country of origin and Taquet. Further finds made the following year filled even more of the skeleton, which showed that Nigersaurus was a very unusual relative of dinosaurs like Diplodocus. Experts found multiple Nigersaurus bones at the site, including neck bones still connected to each other and a jumble of several skull bones.'The skull bones were so strange looking that it was challenging to identify which element we were looking at,' Wilson Mantilla says. Paleontologists have continued studying Nigersaurus and how the dinosaur lived. Its eyes were positioned high on its skull, which may have given the herbivore overlapping visual fields to better watch out for stalking carnivores. A study of the dinosaur's limb bones further indicated that Nigersaurus had thin walls compared to the limb bones of large mammals. (See how these fierce dinos evolved.) Air sacs that invaded and surrounded some of the bones of Nigersaurus, like those found in birds that make their bones hollow, helped keep the dinosaur light enough that the animal did not need bulky bones to support its weight like large mammals do. Having hollow bones supported by air sacs was one of the key traits that allowed dinosaurs like Nigersaurus to get big. While all dinosaurs replace their teeth throughout their lives, Nigersaurus' process was unique. As dino teeth form, they are marked with tiny lines that form each day. 'Counting those lines tells you how old the teeth are,' Wilson Mantilla says. The count on Nigersaurusindicated that each of its teeth was replaced every two weeks, he notes, with seven replacements forming behind the exposed tooth at any one time. The shape of the dinosaur's jaws offered a clue to its dental overachieving. The muzzle of Nigersaurus was square, like a vacuum. Square muzzle shapes are common among animals that graze low to the ground, a hint that Nigersaurus did so too. "Its mouth appears designed for nipping rather than chomping or chewing," Sereno said in a 2007 interview with National Geographic. Wear patterns suggest Nigersaurus' teeth slid by one another like a pair of shears. Such low-growing plants are often tough to eat. Plants like horsetails contain tough, crystal-like material called silica, and vegetation that grew low to the ground would also have a lot of sand or other grit in it Wilson Mantilla says. Feeding on such roughage would have worn down the dinosaur's teeth very quickly, and so Nigersaurus evolved to replace its teeth fast. (Scientists find a new titanosaur dinosaur species in Patagonia.) Experts still have a lot to learn about Nigersaurus and how it evolved to be different from other plant-eating dinosaurs. Studying the unusual herbivore might help experts better understand how such dinosaurs spread all over the planet and thrived for so many millions of years. In time, bones that started as mysteries in the desert may unlock new paleo puzzles. Paleontologists uncovered the bones of many individual Nigersaurus from Gadofaoua, but no single complete skeleton. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, however, Wilson Mantilla and colleagues were able to make digital scans of the collected Nigersaurus bones in 2007 and adjust them to the same scale to create a reconstruction of the dinosaur. It was one of the first times paleontologists had used CT scans to reconstruct the skull anatomy of a dinosaur. (These ancient fish swam with the dinosaurs, but may not survive humans.) The CT scans also revealed the anatomy and position of the dinosaur's inner ear, which shows us how animals hold their heads and balance their bodies. For Nigersaurus, the digital scan indicated that the herbivore kept its muzzle tilted down toward the ground. Researchers also found that the brain cavity of Nigersaurus showed relatively small parts of the brain relating to smell. From this discovery, researchers can assume Nigersaurus probably wasn't very good at sniffing out approaching carnivores or where the tastiest plants might be. But that doesn't seem to have been a problem for a dinosaur that grazed all day.
National Geographic
6 hours ago
- National Geographic
What dinosaur has 500 teeth? This prehistoric jaw was one-of-a-kind
The cast of the skull of Nigersaurus. The fossil skull of Nigersaurus was one of the first dinosaur skulls to be digitally reconstructed from CT scans. Photograph by Ira Block, Nat Geo Image Collection What dinosaur has 500 teeth and replaced each and every one of them every 14 days? With 15 times more teeth than the human set of 32, Nigersaurus taqueti hacked through low-lying vegetation with choppers like a lawn mower, paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Paul Sereno told National Geographic just years after he and colleagues first described and named the dinosaur. About as heavy as an adult African forest elephant, this dinosaur would have weighed about two tons and stretched about 30 feet long from nose to the tip of its tail. The herbivore wandered lowlands of western Africa about 105 million years ago in what's now the Republic of Niger. Nigersaurus was one of the most effective plant-eating creatures to have ever evolved. Here's what you need to know about Nigersaurus and its toothy way of life. The bones of Nigersaurus first came to the attention of paleontologists in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1965 and 1972, French paleontologist Philippe Taquet used previous fossil reports to confirm the suspected bonebeds in Niger. His search turned up multiple prehistoric species new to science, such as the sail-backed, duckbilled dinosaur Ouranosaurus and the gharial-like crocodile Sarcosuchus. One site, Gadofaoua, was especially promising and brimming with the bones of large dinosaurs. Taquet did not describe them in detail or name them, as there were so many other fossils in the area to study. The bones would wait 30 years for another team of paleontologists to dig in further. (Was there a dino the size of a hummingbird?) Scientists unveil the reconstructed skeleton of Nigersaurus on stage during a press conference at National Geographic. Discovered in 1999, the assembled bones show it was a strange plant eater. Researchers created a sculptural rendition of what they expect the dinosaur's distinct head to look like. Scientists also cast reconstructions of the bones to assemble them in the proper shape of the Nigersaurus. Photograph by Bill O'Leary, The TheIn 1997, a field team organized by Sereno, who is also a National Geographic Explorer, rediscovered the bones at Gadofaoua. 'The locality is quite remote, and the temperatures and shifting sands mean that it can be a challenging place to work,' says University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson Mantilla, who helped name Nigersaurus. Each piece of bone was extremely delicate. Some were so thin, light could shine through them. But after careful excavation, preparation, and study, it was clear that Taquet's sauropod was a new dinosaur unlike any seen before. In 1999, Sereno, Wilson Mantilla, and colleagues presented a scientific description of the plant-eater and named it Nigersaurus taqueti in honor of its country of origin and Taquet. Further finds made the following year filled even more of the skeleton, which showed that Nigersaurus was a very unusual relative of dinosaurs like Diplodocus. What did Nigersaurus look like? Experts found multiple Nigersaurus bones at the site, including neck bones still connected to each other and a jumble of several skull bones. 'The skull bones were so strange looking that it was challenging to identify which element we were looking at,' Wilson Mantilla says. Paleontologists have continued studying Nigersaurus and how the dinosaur lived. Its eyes were positioned high on its skull, which may have given the herbivore overlapping visual fields to better watch out for stalking carnivores. A study of the dinosaur's limb bones further indicated that Nigersaurus had thin walls compared to the limb bones of large mammals. (See how these fierce dinos evolved.) Air sacs that invaded and surrounded some of the bones of Nigersaurus, like those found in birds that make their bones hollow, helped keep the dinosaur light enough that the animal did not need bulky bones to support its weight like large mammals do. Having hollow bones supported by air sacs was one of the key traits that allowed dinosaurs like Nigersaurus to get big. Lurdusaurus and Nigersaurus dinosaurs featured in a recreation of West Africa circa 115 million years ago. Nigersaurus was known to eat vegetation close to the ground. Illustration by Arthur Dorety,While all dinosaurs replace their teeth throughout their lives, Nigersaurus' process was unique. As dino teeth form, they are marked with tiny lines that form each day. 'Counting those lines tells you how old the teeth are,' Wilson Mantilla says. The count on Nigersaurusindicated that each of its teeth was replaced every two weeks, he notes, with seven replacements forming behind the exposed tooth at any one time. The shape of the dinosaur's jaws offered a clue to its dental overachieving. The muzzle of Nigersaurus was square, like a vacuum. Square muzzle shapes are common among animals that graze low to the ground, a hint that Nigersaurus did so too. "Its mouth appears designed for nipping rather than chomping or chewing," Sereno said in a 2007 interview with National Geographic. Wear patterns suggest Nigersaurus' teeth slid by one another like a pair of shears. Such low-growing plants are often tough to eat. Plants like horsetails contain tough, crystal-like material called silica, and vegetation that grew low to the ground would also have a lot of sand or other grit in it Wilson Mantilla says. Feeding on such roughage would have worn down the dinosaur's teeth very quickly, and so Nigersaurus evolved to replace its teeth fast. (Scientists find a new titanosaur dinosaur species in Patagonia.) Experts still have a lot to learn about Nigersaurus and how it evolved to be different from other plant-eating dinosaurs. Studying the unusual herbivore might help experts better understand how such dinosaurs spread all over the planet and thrived for so many millions of years. In time, bones that started as mysteries in the desert may unlock new paleo puzzles. How did researchers piece together Nigersaurus? Paleontologists uncovered the bones of many individual Nigersaurus from Gadofaoua, but no single complete skeleton. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, however, Wilson Mantilla and colleagues were able to make digital scans of the collected Nigersaurus bones in 2007 and adjust them to the same scale to create a reconstruction of the dinosaur. It was one of the first times paleontologists had used CT scans to reconstruct the skull anatomy of a dinosaur. (These ancient fish swam with the dinosaurs, but may not survive humans.) The CT scans also revealed the anatomy and position of the dinosaur's inner ear, which shows us how animals hold their heads and balance their bodies. For Nigersaurus, the digital scan indicated that the herbivore kept its muzzle tilted down toward the ground. Researchers also found that the brain cavity of Nigersaurus showed relatively small parts of the brain relating to smell. From this discovery, researchers can assume Nigersaurus probably wasn't very good at sniffing out approaching carnivores or where the tastiest plants might be. But that doesn't seem to have been a problem for a dinosaur that grazed all day.
