Thanks to our new technique using fossilised tracks, we have been able to learn more about the locomotion of the largest creatures ever to have roamed this planet.
We showed for the first time that social disruption and trauma - such as culling of older elephants - has a lasting impact on the behaviour of African elephants.
A Bohemian waxwing eating mountain ash berries.
Lisa Hupp, USFWS/Flickr
Forests around the world will need to shift their ranges to adapt to climate change. But many trees and plants rely on animals to spread their seeds widely, and those partners are declining.
4.5 million-year-old cranium of the fossil elephant Loxodonta adaurora, from Ileret, Kenya, in right lateral and front views.
Figure courtesy of Carol Abraczinskas, University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
There are no body fossils of elephants from this time period, so the available information of how these gigantic animals moved through the ancient landscapes depends entirely on the track record.
Some animals, such as California sea lions, have small brains relative to their body size, but are still impressively intelligent, showing brain evolution is even more complex than it appears.
An African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of the Congo.
Nicolas Deloche/Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A new review of the status of African elephants finds scientific grounds for dividing them into two species, and reports that both have suffered drastic population declines since 1990.
Tim – one of the last big tusker elephants – died last year at the age of 50, in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
From the author
Elephants use their giant incisors to dig holes, impress rivals and rest weary trunks. But as so many continue to be killed for their ivory, he question is whether they are destined to be tuskless.
Photograph of an elephant brain.
Dr. Paul Manger/ University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Elephants don’t have the enzyme that allows humans to metabolize alcohol. This means that anecdotes about elephants getting drunk from rotten fruit may very well be true.
Rosewood, the name for several endangered tree species that make beautiful furniture, being loaded in Madagascar.
Pierre-Yves Babelon/Shutterstock
For decades nations have worked to curb international sales of endangered plants and animals. But in countries like China, with high demand and speculative investors, that strategy fuels bidding wars.
African elephant in Kruger national park, South Africa.
PACO COMO/Shutterstock