Social Evolution

I must admit I found this report of changes in elephant behavior by Bill Andrews on D-brief fascinating:

Elephants might be popular in zoos and older kids’ TV shows, but they’re not doing so great in the wild. Asian elephants are classified as endangered, thanks in large part to human activity. But the big beasts are brainy, and they’re trying apparently trying new things in the face of these changing conditions to survive and even thrive.

At least, that’s what a team of Indian researchers describes in a Scientific Reports paper today. They observed groups of adolescent male elephants — which typically live in mixed-sex communities while young, and wander off to lead solitary lives as adults — form and stay in groups to help face the increased risks of modern life. This new behavior was most common in the most dangerous areas, and actually helped the grouped elephants grow into stronger, fitter adults. The authors say it’s just one more way animals are adapting to a changing world – not (solely) with genetics and evolution, but simply by altering their activity.

I mean, it makes sense. While once, adolescent males could just wander off on their own and expect a relatively low-risk environment, nowadays “movement into unknown habitats in search of food, water and other elephants, may become maladaptive,” the authors write. All the more so in human-dominated areas such as farms and cropland.

I don’t really have anything to say, except that it appears that elephants are finding ways to prolong what appears to be their inevitable extinction. And it’s electrifying to see evolution in action.