Elephant's graveyard

An elephant graveyard (also written elephant's graveyard or elephants' graveyard) is a place where, according to legend, older elephants instinctively direct themselves when they reach a certain age. They then die there alone, far from the group.

Contents

Origin

There are several theories about the myth's origin. One theory revolves around people finding groups of elephant skeletons together, or observing old elephants and skeletons in the same habitat, as Kenneth Armitage suggests.[1] Others such as Enrico Bruhl suggest that the term may spring from group die-offs such as one he excavated in Saxony-Anhalt which had 27 Palaeoloxodon antiquus skeletons.[2] In that particular case the tusks of the skeletons were missing, which indicates either that hunters killed a group of elephants in one spot, or else that opportunistic scavengers removed the tusks from a natural die-off.

Other theories focus on elephant behavior during lean times, suggesting that starving elephants gather in places where finding food is easier, and subsequently die there.[3] Similarly, Rupert Sheldrake notes that elephant skeletons are frequently found in groups near permanent sources of water and suggests that elephants suffering from malnutrition instinctively seek out sources of water in the hopes of improving their condition. The elephants that do not improve develop increasingly low blood sugar, slip into a coma and die. Finally, older elephants whose teeth have worn out (typically after their sixth set of teeth) seek out soft water plants and eventually die near watering holes.[4]

The myth was popularised in films such as Trader Horn and MGM's Tarzan movies, in which groups of greedy explorers attempt to locate the elephants' graveyard, on the fictional Mutia Escarpment, in search of its riches of ivory.[5] More recently, Walt Disney's The Lion King referred to the motif. Also, one episode of Kimba the White Lion revolved around it.

Derivative meanings

In geology, "elephants' graveyard" is an informal term for a hypothetical accumulation of "large blocks of country rock stoped from the roofs of batholiths".[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Armitage, Kenneth B.; Buss, Irven O. (March 1992). "The Great Beast — Elephant Life: Fifteen Years of High Population Density". Bioscience (BioScience, Vol. 42, No. 3) 42 (3): 196–197. doi:10.2307/1311827. JSTOR 1311827. 
  2. ^ Brühl, Enrico; Dietrich Mania (22-25 September 2003). "Neumark-Nord: a middle Pleistocene lake shore with synchronous sites of different functional character". Données récentes sur les modalités de peuplement en Europe au Paléolithique inférieur et moyen. Rennes: Université de Rennes. 
  3. ^ Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Richard Barnes, Hezy Shoshani, A. Christy Williams, A. J. T. Johnsingh, Robin Beck, Katy Payne "Elephants" The Encyclopedia of Mammals. Ed. David W. Macdonald. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.28 August 2007 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t227.e47>
  4. ^ Elephant issue of Zoobooks
  5. ^ Earnhart, Brady (1 July 2007). "A Colony of the Imagination: Vicarious Spectatorship in MGM's Early Tarzan Talkies". Quarterly Review of Film and Video 24 (4): 341–352. doi:10.1080/10509200500526778. 
  6. ^ Clarke, D. Barrie; Andrew S. Henry, Mary Anne White (10 September 1998). "Exploding xenoliths and the absence of 'elephants' graveyards' in granite batholiths". Journal of Structural Geology 20 (9–10): 1325–1343. doi:10.1016/S0191-8141(98)00082-0. 

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