The saying that elephants never forget has been backed by science. And it seems that the old adage may be particularly true in the case of matriarchs, who lead the herd. They signal whether an outsider is a friend or foe to the rest of the herd, allowing family members to focus on feeding and breeding when there is no danger. The older and more experienced the matriarch, the better she is at recognising old friends, and the more calves the family is likely to produce. The findings have important implications for conservation - poachers tend to kill the bigger, older elephants, thereby decreasing the survival chances of the whole group.
Elephants often travel large distances in search of food.
A typical group of elephants consists of a matriarch grandmother and a number of her daughters and grandaughters. Male African elephants leave the family units at an early age and remain single or in small bachelor groups. When the female elephants encounter other individuals they do not recognise, family members bunch together defensively to protect their young. The scientists found that older matriarchs were better at picking out genuine strangers by means of the elephants' smell or contact calls, allowing the herd to spend more time relaxing and breeding. McComb and colleagues studied 21 elephant families in Amboseli National park, Kenya, over the course of seven years.