It has been seen that scientific research tends to stay away from the idea of emotionality in animals. A multitude of animals are discussed in this book, and the elephants provide several examples of many different emotions across the board. It is a common practice for the entire herd to try and lift a dying elephant back to its feet. They caress the elephant with their trunks and bring it food in attempts for resuscitation. Once dead, a funeral march is seen, where the elephants circle the dead, turn facing outward, then circle the dead again, repeating the cycle over and over.
Elephants also show interest in the bones of their dead.
They cannot pass the elephant bones without examining and feeling the remains. It is thought that elephants practice this in order to recall past herd members or relatives. An orphaned baby elephant caresses the jawbone of its deceased mother, almost as if it remembers the contours of her face in life. Fear is another emotion that the authors spend time examining. Error in anthropomorphism can be seen when a human acting out fear from an animal only sees anger and hostility from the animal, when in fact fear is expressed by both humans and animals, in regards to the fight or flight response mechanisms.