The world is so big that in natural animal groups, not only are there violent mating behaviors like sea otters, but there is also cross-population mating between animals, and this mating behavior is not voluntary. For example, some scientists in the African savannah have found a puzzling thing, that is, the phenomenon of adult male elephants raping rhinos occurs every year.
It is understood that in just over a decade from 1990 to 2001, three male elephants raped more than sixty rhinos, which means that at least six rhinos were raped every year. So why do elephants rape rhinos?
Rhinos were raped by elephants
The African savannah is a paradise for animals, where a wide variety of animals can run freely in the infinite wilderness of the past, and the unparalleled beauty is breathtaking. However, it wasn't until the early 1990s that something shocking happened here, when the people in charge found that many rhinos living here had died abnormally. After tireless investigation, the staff finally found the real culprit who killed the rhino, that is, the elephant, whose violent behavior killed the rhino.
One can't help but question, "Won't a rhino run away?" Do you have to wait and tie your hands? ”
To know that an African elephant is about three to four meters tall on the shoulders and weighs between five and eight tons, while the length of the rhino is only 2.2 to 4.5 meters, and the weight is 2.8 to 3 tons, for the rhino it is not that it does not want to run, but the elephant coverage in front of it is too large, plus there is a blind spot behind it, under the huge difference in size, the rhino is powerless no matter how to resist. Coupled with the savage attacks of elephants, under this rape, it eventually led to the death of rhinos.
There have been photographers who inadvertently photographed the image of elephants and rhinos mating, elephants like to use their noses to entangle each other for courtship, but this way of courtship does not buy for rhinos, after the courtship is fruitless and provoked, the elephant will directly suppress each other with a huge weight and start barbaric rape. Even if the rhinoceros exerts the power of the flood, I am afraid it will not be able to escape.
Of course, in addition to the rhinos being raped by elephants, there are also some national park vehicles have also been attacked by elephants, not only that, they will also attack their own kind, such as Addo Elephant Park, where the elephant mortality rate is as high as 90%, the male elephant killed their own kind, without their attack, under normal circumstances, the mortality rate of elephants is 6%.
Why do male elephants rape rhinos, and is the root cause of human beings?
1. Human deforestation has destroyed elephant habitats
So why do elephants behave in such an abnormal way? In the investigation, the relevant scientific research team found that the root cause of elephants to rape rhinos is actually attributed to human behavior.
Elephants are well known to be social animals, they are based on families, and the general group leader is the female elephant. Every day, whether it is going out to forage for food or looking for a place to live, all actions must be directed by the mother elephant, and the adult male elephant is responsible for protecting the safety of the elephant herd.
The mother elephant breeds every four to six years, until she is still fertile in her fifties, and from infancy to adulthood, the whole process is very slow, at least it takes nearly twenty years or so, and many unaged baby elephants have to help the mother elephant share the care of the young siblings, and these young elephants will move around the mother elephant for the first eight years of their birth, and the range of activity is within fifteen feet.
When they reach adulthood, young male elephants leave the group to rejoin the male elephant herd, and adult young female elephants are included in the group. Old and small roosters exist in the herd of male elephants, and these young male elephants will personally teach the baby elephants how to support themselves. With the intensification of human deforestation and the increasing number of illegal hunters, this social group structure of elephants has been destroyed.
After the habitat environment was affected, many juvenile baby male elephants lost the protection of family members. They have not even mastered how to learn how to show love and how to reproduce, and without proper guidance, they have no idea what the correct mating and reproduction behavior is. Therefore, in the eyes of some male elephants, rhinos have no defense ability, so they become their mating partners, making rhinos victims.
2, illegal hunting left painful memories on the road to brutality
In addition, another reason why elephants rape rhinos is directly related to the memory of elephants. In mammals, elephants have more than two hundred billion neurons, three times as many as humans, and these neurons give elephants super memory ability.
Therefore, when many illegal hunters brutally hunted and killed the parents of the baby elephant, in the face of such a brutal scene, the baby elephant's heart was left with serious trauma. They lack the company of the group, without the guidance of their elders, and these painful memories accompany the growth of the baby elephant, which also makes the baby elephant embark on the path of extreme cruelty from childhood.
Some scientists have found that abnormal fright or excessive attacks are also present in baby elephants. Little elephants who don't know how to love, in order to release hormones in their bodies when they grow up, have to take rhinos as their own sacrifices. Under the mating of rape, many rhinos will die tragically. It can be seen that the contradiction between humans and elephants is getting worse and worse, and if there is no human indiscriminate logging and illegal hunting, perhaps the male elephant will not commit such an extreme act of raping rhinos.
How can elephants be stopped from raping rhinos?
If elephants don't stop raping rhinos, it means that more and more rhinos will die. How to stop elephants from raping rhinos?
In fact, the ringer also needs to tie the bell. The root cause of this brutal and distorted path for elephants is human- causes, so it is still necessary for humans to solve this behavior. For example, protecting the ecological environment, planting trees, eliminating illegal hunting, returning elephants to a beautiful home, and restoring the social structure of elephants, so that small male elephants can get the love of their parents, get the right guidance, and change this distorted concept of love and mating.
In addition, it is also necessary for relevant people to intervene to help those bull elephants who have committed rape, heal their psychological wounds, return them to the wild elephant herd, let the elephants regularly reunite with the wild elephant family members, and reconstruct this group, and slowly the trauma of the heart will be effectively healed, and the rape behavior will be effectively prevented.