[Source: Scientific American]


(Photo: Scientific American)

The lush riverside vegetation sways as a herd of elephant wends its way between the broken pools. Standing at the top of an embankment, a half-grown male is watching a larger elephant trudge up the slope toward it.

Without warning, the youngster squats down on his haunches (just like a dog) and launches himself down the slope. Slithering at a good speed, he collides (with an audible thump) into the elephant below, sweeping them both, in a flurry of waving limbs and trunks, to the foot of the hill. There, lying on their stomachs, the pair jousts, twisting and parrying with trunk and tusk.

Meanwhile up above, an onlooker waits, scuffing his feet impatiently and swinging his trunk from side to side. He seems to be waiting for them to clear the trail, but when the two finally begin to traipse up the slope, he squats and whooshes down to create a three-elephant pile up.

What these elephants are up to is a mystery.

In fact, it’s one of the greatest enigmas in the field of animal behavior.

A pachyderm rite of passage? An evolutionary precursor to bob-sledding? Itchy-rump syndrome?

No, these elephants are playing, and science has no idea why.

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