Exclusive Video – The Bulls (#3)

Thank you for adopting the DZANGA BULLS!

The following are exclusive videos of Dzanga’s Bulls, recorded by Andrea Turkalo at Dzanga.
(There is sound, of course, so best viewed with your headphones on.)
Enjoy!

Hilton is a massive mature male who dominates any other male present in the bai, unless that other male is in musth and Hilton is not. Notice as Hilton walks through the bai he is constantly testing the air and the soil surface for pheromones that would indicate the presence of a female near or in estrous. Others are wary, males and females both. In this video Hilton is not in musth, but look at the difference in size compared to the others in the bai this afternoon!

Two fully adult males, both in the state of musth, really fight it out. This sort of intensity is not often seen, even in the much more easily viewed savannah elephant, and has been rarely seen in forest elephants.

The likely instigation for this fight, a female in estrous, moves into the frame from the left at time marker 01:43, with a young male in hot pursuit. It is very common for subordinant males to ‘sneak’ copulations when a musth male is busy defending access. In this video you can see the young male begin his mount a few seconds after they come into the frame. Again at time marker 02:06 you see the same young male trying to copulate, but the attempt is interrupted by one of the males in musth.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ca6zFLiD3oU

Frankie demonstrates the dexterity of an elephant’s trunk as he pulls small mouthfuls of grass from a flooded depression. With each piece he splashes the roots back and forth in the water to remove the dirt before popping it into his mouth.

Basil (on the right), here only nine years old, is only a year older than Elvira II and of similar body size, but easily dominates her. Although males and females increase in height and body mass about equally until about 15 years of age, males can dominate even adult females once they reach 9 or 10 years.