Elephants are smart and social, and sometimes they seem very much like humans, for example when they mourn their dead. Long term research by Shermin de Silva and colleagues (BMC Ecology, 2011) showed that their friendships are also very much like ours.

Who is she hanging out with?

Shermin and her colleagues observed 286 female elephants over 20 months in Uda Walawe National Park in Sri Lanka. Every time the field crew saw one of the elephants, they noted who she was with. The data could later be analyzed using tools from network analysis.

How to recognize 286 elephants?

But wait a second, 286 elephants … that’s a lot of elephants to remember. You may wonder how recognizing so many individual elephants is even possible for Shermin and her crew. Well, the answer is twofold. First of all, all elephants have different ears. Second, Shermin and her colleagues…