Wild elephants around Mount Elgon in Kenya seem to look for certain plants when they are sick. People who have worked with them for decades named 35 plant species and four kinds of soil, minerals or clay that the elephants appear to use. The study is published in Scientific Reports.
For African elephants in this region, this is the first time anyone has written such knowledge down in a system. It also changes what forest loss means: the elephants could lose not just food, but their medicine.
Who they asked
The team from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Germany did not disturb the animals. Instead, they interviewed eight local experts: rangers, wildlife scouts and elders who have lived near the elephants for more than 20 years. Every plant was then identified and checked against scientific databases.
Eight of the plants, including a species of aloe, met the study's strictest test for use as medicine rather than food. And 87 percent of all the plants and soils named are also used in local traditional medicine.
Mothers and calves
The experts also described mother elephants giving plant material to their calves. The authors are careful here. Nobody has yet shown how the plants are prepared, or that they help.
That caution runs through the whole study. It is based on what people report, not on direct observation, and it does not prove that the plants work. The authors call it "putative," meaning possible, self-medication.
