In Part 1 of this series, we have mentioned that we will be answering some commonly asked questions that we, as guides, are used to getting on safari. Some of the previous questions answered, were about impala and their young, hippos swimming and white lions. In this Part 2, we will be having a look at some more of these questions and giving you the real facts and stories for these, squashing any myths or legends around them.

Do elephants really go to an “Elephant Graveyard” to die?

The legends of an elephant graveyard have been around for centuries; rather, although the Lion King did help bring it back to people’s attention. People even set up expeditions to see if they could find these graveyards, hoping they would find piles of ivory along with them. Although some claimed they managed to find them, there was never any evidence of this. In saying this, there are no such things as elephant graveyards, but there could be a few reasons why people think there are.

Unfortunately with these large animals, starvation at times is a real possibility, especially in years of severe drought. This could mean that skeletons of a few herd members starving together may have been found. The same is when animals have to cover large distances between water and feeding grounds, with individuals dying just before they reach the water sources and so bones piling up over years.

Elephants that have worn all of their teeth down will also have to make a plan for food. They will often move into areas around the inflows of dams or along rivers and drainage lines. Here they feed on the softer vegetation, but invariably they slowly lose condition before passing away. Again, over a few decades, you may find this happening to a few individuals, and so it may look as if they moved there to die on purpose.

People also often seem to forget that elephant bulls are massive and have a massive skeleton structure. When one dies, there is a lot of bone around. Their bones are also incredibly dense, with 19% of an elephant’s mass being made up of the skeleton, the highest of any mammal. This means that a lot of the bones remain intact, and although they may be moved around by scavengers, they stay in the general area the elephant has fallen. Again, with this mass of bones, it may look like more than one individual has died in the area.

Although there is no graveyard itself, one thing that is for certain is that elephants do most certainly grieve their fallen companions. There have been many records of herds returning to the site of a fallen cow, or bulls returning to the body of a fallen friend. At first they may try and get the fallen animal to stand, but once reality sets in, they will often stand around the carcass quietly, sometimes for up to an hour. Some individuals may show distress and anger after a period, but others mourn quietly, touching the body softly with their trunks. This may carry on for years after, even once there are only bones of the elephant remaining. They definitely remember the animal that has died. Only intelligent animals, like us, dolphins and great apes, mourn, and this shows that elephants are right up there with them.

Are hyenas more closely related to cats or dogs?

This is a question that all of us get when somebody first sees a hyena. Some people are even more confused and think that hyenas are part of the bear family. However, this is certainly not the case, and hyenas, as weird as it may sound, are more closely related to cats than dogs.

This confuses many people, as they certainly look more like dogs than cats, with both their body build and foot structure. Where it comes from is that the Hyaenidae (hyenas) and Felidae (true cats) share a common ancestry from a long time ago. The entire Carnivora (dogs and cats, including hyenas) appeared around 60 million years ago. This soon split into two larger groups, felines and canines. A further 30 million years down the line, this feline line split again, giving rise to your true cats, with the second group being made up of hyenas, mongooses and viverrids (genets and civets).

For millions of years, the hyenas thrived and evolved further from there, losing their cat-like appearance more and more. Today, we have got four species of hyena: the spotted, brown, and striped hyenas and aardwolves. Their cousins, civets and genets, still have a very strong resemblance to cats in comparison. This is why people will often class these two as cats. 

The only physical resemblance that the hyenas have to the cats isn’t even visible to the naked eye, and you have to look at the skeleton itself. The fusion of the vertebrae to the skull is the same as a cat’s rather than a dog’s. Also, then looking at the skull, a dog has a very rounded skull, with no showing of the earlobes, whereas they are visible on both cats and hyenas.

This is the reason that why when a guide drives guests into a hyena den, they are right when they call these cute little bear looking youngsters, cubs. Pups is not correct as this would be referring to a dog, rather than the cats these hyenas are related to. Some people think that the cubs themselves look very much like seal pups, which they do, but there is no close relation to them either. Hyena dens are communal sites and numerous females may have their cubs there. Once cubs are bold enough and strong enough they will move away from the den which is usually at around a year of age.

Both of the questions we have looked at are ones that have been around for a very long time and ones that you are sure to heard people ask on safari. They are not silly, but have been led astray by old media or in some cases, even Walt Disney!