Elephant Volume 2 | Issue 4 Article 27 1-1-2000 Frequently Asked Questions About Elephants Jeheskel Shoshani Charles Foley Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/elephant Recommended Citation Shoshani, J., & Foley, C. (2000). Frequently Asked Questions About Elephants. Elephant, 2(4), 78-87. Doi: 10.22237/elephant/ 1521732268 This Recent Correspondence is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Access Journals at DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Elephant by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@WayneState. 78 Elephant Volume 2, Number 4 Elephant. Volume 2, Number 4, pages 78-87 feeding, drinking, bathing, sprinkling (dust and grass on body), Copyright © 2000 Elephant Research Foundation smelling, detecting (e.g., when a female is in estrus), offense, defense, sound production, courtship, calf assurance (a mother elephant frequently reassures her calf by touching it all over its Frequently Asked Questions About Elephants body with her trunk, especially during nursing), and a variety of Part I by Jeheskel Shoshani; Part II by Jeheskel Shoshani and behavioral signals/displays. Charles Foley — addresses below with some answers by other contributors Q. How does an elephant pick up food? A. Usually, Asian elephants pick up objects with their trunks by the Below is a compilation of some frequently asked questions about “grasp” and “pinch” methods, and Africans by the “pinch” elephants that were addressed to our office (mostly to Hezy Shoshani). method. Under captive situations when both species of elephant They were asked by interested individuals, schools, museums, are together, African elephants learn that the grasp method enables Hollywood Squares Television Program, National Geographic them to collect food faster, and they employ that method as well Society, Elephant Listserver (<
[email protected]>; we [see “Learned behaviors”, under ENN; cf.