Elephants have four distinct personalities that help their herd survive in the African bush, scientists have found.
With their grey skin, mournful eyes and slow plodding gait, you could be forgiven for thinking elephants are uniformly melancholy creatures. But scientists have now discovered the largest living land animals have personalities to match their size.
In a new study of African elephants, researchers have identified four distinct characters that are prevalent with a herd – the leaders, the gentle giants, the playful rogues and the reliable plodders.
Each of the types has developed to help the giant mammals survive in their harsh environment and are almost unique in the animal kingdom, according to the scientists.
Professor Phyllis Lee and her colleague Cynthia Moss studied a herd of elephants in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya known as the EB family – famous for their matriarch Echo before she died in 2009.
Using data collected over 38 years of watching this group, the researchers analysed them for 26 types of behaviour and found four personality traits tended to come to the fore.
The strongest personality to emerge was that of the leader. Unlike other animals, where leadership tends to be won by the most dominant and aggressive individual, the elephants instead respected intelligence and problem solving in their leader. Echo, the matriarch and oldest in the group, her daughter Enid, and Ella, the second oldest female, all emerged as leaders.
The playful elephants tended to be younger but were more curious and active. Eudora, a 40-year-old female in the herd, seemed to be the most playful, consistently showing this trait through out her life while playfulness in some of the other elephants declined with age.
Gentle elephants, which included two 27-year-old females Eleanor and Eliot, caressed and rubbed against others more than the others.
Those that were reliable tended to be those that were most consistent at making good decisions, helped to care for infants in the herd and were calm when faced with threats. Echo and her youngest daughter Ebony seemed to be the most reliable.
Professor Lee said that elephants with these traits tended to be the most socially integrated in the group while those who tended to be less reliable and pushy were more likely to split from the herd.
(Read by CJ Henderson. CJ Henderson is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
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(Agencies)
科學家發現，大象有四種性格，幫助它們的群落在非洲叢林中生存下來。
很多人誤以為，有著灰色皮膚、悲傷眼神、邁著緩慢沉重步履的大象性格都是憂鬱的。但是科學家現在發現，這種現存最大陸生動物身材不同，性格也不同。
在一項對非洲象的新研究中，研究人員發現大象群落中最常見的四種截然不同的性格——領袖性格、溫和性格、頑皮性格和可靠耐勞性格。
科學家稱，每種性格都能幫助這種巨型哺乳動物在嚴酷環境中生存，這在動物王國中幾乎是獨一無二的。
菲利斯•李教授和她的同事辛西婭•莫斯研究了肯亞安波塞利國家公園裡的一群號稱「EB家庭」的大象，這個群落因其女家長艾柯而出名，艾柯於2009年離世。
在觀察這個群落並收集了38年的數據之後，研究人員分析了這些大象的26種行為方式，發現了最顯著的四種性格類型。
個性最強的就是領袖性格的大象。其他動物的領導權一般都是最具主導力和侵略性的個體贏得，但大象尊敬的是領導的智慧和解決問題的能力。群落中最年長的女家長艾柯、她的女兒艾妮德、年紀僅次於艾柯的艾拉都是象群的領袖。
頑皮的大象一般年紀小些，但是更好奇、更好動。群落中一頭40歲的雌象尤多拉似乎是最貪玩的，這種頑皮的性格陪伴了她一生，但其他一些大象的頑皮卻隨著年齡而消減。
溫和的大象——包括兩頭27歲的雌象艾琳娜和艾略特——更經常愛撫和觸碰其他大象。
那些可靠性格的大象通常總是做出正確決定，幫助照顧群落中的幼象，而且在面臨威脅時能保持冷靜。艾柯和她最年幼的女兒艾伯妮似乎是群落中最可靠的大象。
李教授說，擁有這些性格的大象通常都是最能融入群體的，而那些沒那麼可靠、一意孤行的大象則最可能脫離象群。
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（中國日報網英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯：Julie）