Elephants grieve for lost relatives

It has long been said that an elephant never forgets, now it seems they even remember their dead.

The gentle giants mourn their dead by frequently visiting their graves, 'kissing' their bodies with their trunks and even rocking to and fro with grief.

The creatures also show compassion towards the sick and dying, trying to nurse them back to health, the Oxford University study found.

The findings show that elephants, like humans, show compassion towards the sick and grieve for the dead.

But, while humans usually reserve their grief for friends and family, elephants mourn over the death of the loosest acquaintance.

The researchers used digital cameras and GPS satellite tracking to watch how the death of an elderly female elephant named Eleanor affected other elephants, both from her herd and further afield.

Eleanor, the aging matriarch of the 'First Ladies' family, was caught on film collapsing and falling heavily to the ground. Just two minutes later, the matriarch of another family group rushed to her aid.

This elephant, named Grace by researchers, hauled Eleanor back to her feet and prodded her tusks to try to get her to walk.

When the dying animal failed to respond, Grace stayed by her for at least an hour as night fell on the Kenyan savannah.

The records, compiled with the help of the conservation charity Save the Elephants, also reveal that Eleanor never got up again and died at 11am the next morning.

Over the next week, at least a dozen elephants, including her six-month-old calf, visited her grave.

While her best friend, an adult elephant called Maya, was one of the first to pay her respects, members of four other families, including elephants who barely knew her, made the pilgrimage.

The first elephant on the scene, a loose acquaintance called Maui, stood over her body and rocked to and fro. Others touched her with their trunks - a 'kiss' more usually given to their friends and relatives.

The most touching reaction was that of Eleanor's calf, who nuzzled her mother's carcass in bewilderment.

Sadly, the calf did not survive much longer, dying around three months later after the other females refused to suckle her, the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science reports.

The researchers said it was clear that the creatures are capable of showing compassion. And, unlike humans, their capacity for empathy for the sick and dead extends past those closest to them.

Compassion was thought to be a human trait, with few animals, other than chimps and dolphins showing more than a passing interest in the dead and dying.

It is thought the grief shown by the elephants indicated the matriarch's pivotal role in the herd, protecting other members from danger and mapping out the daily hunt for food and water. It is not known of the creatures would go to such lengths to mourn less important elephants.

Close examination of the dead body may also help the creatures glean vital information about predators and disease.