Studying Elephants
Elephant Perfume
Good Vibrations
Trumpets and Rumbles
Gods and Monsters
100
This substance gives scientists an easily available, low-cost way to learn about the health and family trees of elephants and even judge the size of an elephant population.
What is elephant dung?
100
Elephants and cats both use this organ in the roof of the mouth to capture chemical signals and send them to the brain.
What is Jacobson's organ?
100
Vibrations may help elephants find each other over long distances for this important purpose.
What is finding a mate?
100
Researcher Katy Payne was reminded of this musical instrument when she thought back on the silent rumbles of elephants she'd recorded in the zoo.
What is a pipe organ? or What is a church organ?
100
This elephant-headed god is worshipped by Hindus throughout India and has his own birthday festival.
Who is Ganesh?
200
Georg von Bekesy ran to the glue factory to rescue these after his assistant mistakenly left them behind.
What are the cochlea of an elephant's ear?
200
These molecules are used widely throughout the animal world for chemical communication.
What are pheromones?
200
Elephants adopt this special special posture in order to sense vibrations through the ground.
What is tip-toe?
200
The open spaces in an elephant's skull can amplify their trumpet calls, as can this structure.
What is the elephant's trunk?
200
This material, used for combs and snuffboxes in the 19th century, was called the plastic of its age.
What is ivory?
300
These special nerve cells are found in the brains of people, most primates, some whales, and elephants.
What are spindle neurons?
300
Bull elephants in this state of sexual aggression can be dangerous and unpredictable.
What is musth?
300
Researcher Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell went shopping here for special equipment to test elephant's sensitivity to vibrations.
What is a home stereo store?
300
When elephants are making an infrasonic rumble, this part of their body can been seen to flutter.
What is the forehead?
300
Women in rural African mix these into bricks which are then burned as elephant repellant.
What are chili peppers?
400
Bets Rasmussen and David Greenwood used a catheter designed for use in premature babies to collect a small sample of this substance from an elephant.
What is elephant mucus? or What is elephant snot?
400
This spot on the elephant's head is the source of smelly secretions that carry messages to other elephants.
What is the temporal gland?
400
The fatty tissue in an elephant's foot-pad resembles the "melon" fat found in the head of this distant relative.
What is a whale?
400
Baby elephants often scream or roar to get this.
What is milk?
400
Most of the illegal ivory from poached elephants is sold to wealthy business people on what continent?
What is Asia?
500
Researchers eavesdrop on the forest elephants of the Central African Republic using this technology.
What are microphones in the trees?
500
In a study, elephants were able to tell Maasai hunters and Kamba farmers apart based on smell and this characteristic.
What is the color of their clothing?
500
This atmospheric condition, common on the African savannah, allows the vibrations of elephants to travel further at dusk.
What is a temperature inversion?
500
This special structure under an elephant's tongue stores extra water for emergencies and helps amplify certain calls.
What is the pharyngeal pouch?
500
More enlightened methods for controlling working elephants in Nepal are changing the daily routines both of elephants and these traditional elephant handlers.
What are mahouts?