Elephant Trivia

Did you know that elephants aren’t really scared of mice?

But what are they actually scared of?

BEES!

Elephants are not a fan of bees, and for good reason! Like with humans, bees can sting elephants in and around their eyes, as well as in their trunks, and can break the skin of elephant calves.

A study conducted in 2010 also found that elephants produce a distinctive warning ‘cry’ or rumble in response to bees, to alert other elephants in the area to beware. The study showed that 6/10 elephant families that heard the mimicked sound of the warning rumble fled the area even though they neither saw nor heard bees.

Moreover, another study in 2018 found that honeybees release chemical substances called pheromones when they sense a threat. For the bees, these natural alarm signals tell their buddies to come help and act defensively and sting. Elephants can detect such chemical cues, and scientists found that elephants could sense the alarm pheromones from honeybees, and keep their distance from that area. 

The Future of Elephants

One elephant is killed for their tusks every 20 minutes.

The elephant is one of the most iconic animals in the African savanna and yet they are being poached for their ivory at an unsustainable rate across the continent. They are on a fast track to extinction if we do not act now. 

During the twentieth-century wild elephant populations saw a rapid decline as consumer demand for ivory from Asian markets sky-rocketed. Today, as few as 415,000 remain across Africa, with as many as 30,000 killed each year for their ivory.