Elephants sniff the corpse, burry the dead, touch and handle bones extensively, scatter bones and shatter tusks. Elephants seem to display grief at the death of a family member. Attempts to assist a dying elephant may persist long after death. Elephant and human burrial rites can be compared toward communication about death and dying. ODOR Frequent sniffing of the route by traveling humans or elephants points to a common olfactory element in the cognitive maps of humans and elephants and to olfactory marking.
Elephant odor is concentrated at water holes, places of high food density, and along routes.
Elephants and humans detect predators by smell and both detect prey plants or animals by smell. Human nad elephant places of death are vividly marked with intense and persistent olfactory information. Olfaction is important to socially hunting human groups and to socially defending or counter-attacking elephant groups. The research was done with retired working elephants in Northern Thailand and with a six year old male. Four images were used, a circle, triangle, wavy line and cross.