OKC Zoo Scientists Conduct First-Of-Its-Kind Study, How Elephants Use Odors To Identify

The Oklahoma City Zoo said in a press release Friday that two of their own were published in Biology Letter, a Royal Society journal focused on research across the biological sciences, for their research about the advanced sensory abilities of elephants and how they use odors to identify unfamiliar elephants.

The Zoo’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Behavior, Dr. Chase LaDue, and Senior Director of Conservation, Education, and Science, Dr. Rebecca Snyder, were the first to study Asian elephants in human care or wild populations, according to OKC Zoo.

The report says that Asian elephants are known for their keen sense of smell and use odors for many things in their daily life, like finding food, navigating surroundings, avoiding threats, assessing mates, and more.

The study proposed that they also use odor to identify unfamiliar elephants by their individual odors.

Dr. LaDue conducted a study that analyzed the behavior of six Asian elephants at the Oklahoma City Zoo, including males Rex, Kandula, and Bowie and females Chandra, Asha, and Achara, after they were exposed to urine from unfamiliar male elephants. 

LaDue collaborated with Denver Zoo to receive urine samples from their male Asian elephants that the OKC Zoo’s elephants had never met.

For six days, the Zoo’s elephants were exposed to urine samples in a controlled manner that allowed Zoo experts to observe how the elephants responded to odor. They recorded each individual animal’s behavior.

The research found that all six of the OKC Zoo’s participating elephants indicated an ability to differentiate odors based on Denver Zoo’s elephants’ reproductive status and individual identity.

The results demonstrate the sensory abilities of elephants and have promising implications for elephant conservation.

  “The sensory world of elephants is very different from that of humans. Elephants depend much more than we do upon odors to understand each other and the environment,” said LaDue in the release. “Our study provides evidence that the odors that elephants produce can also be used as individualized olfactory “name tags.” As we seek to better understand the complex sensory and social lives of elephants, new information like this can help us to develop conservation action plans for this endangered species."

The OKC Zoo, home to a multigenerational herd of eight Asian elephants, hopes this study will contribute to the care and conservation of the endangered species and its habitats.

They say they have supported and contributed to a number of elephant-related conservation projects for many years.