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Observations on Elephant Mortality and Bones in Water Holes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

A. Conybeare  and
Gary Haynes
A. Conybeare
Affiliation:
Hwange National Park Research Station, Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Private Bag DT 5776, Dete, Zimbabwe
Gary Haynes
Affiliation:
National Museum of Natural History, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560 USA
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Abstract

An unusually severe drought in 1982 led to a temporary die-off of elephants at a natural water source in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Compared to living populations, the age structure of the animals killed by drought is strongly biased toward 2-to 8-year-old animals. However, the fresh carcasses of these young elephants were commingled with weathered remains of adults that had died earlier, creating a mixed skeletal sample whose age structure was much closer to that of living populations. Observations of elephant bones that have accumulated due to natural mortality at water holes might provide analogs for paleoecological interpretations of fossil proboscidean assemblages.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , September 1984 , pp. 189 - 200
Copyright
University of Washington

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