When Yawning Occurs in Elephants

Abstract

Yawning is a widely recognized behavior in mammalian species. One would expect that elephants yawn, although to our knowledge, no one has reported observations of yawning in any species of elephant. After confirming a behavioral pattern matching the criteria of yawning in two Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in a zoological setting, this study was pursued with nine captive African elephants (Loxodonta africana) at a private reserve in the Western Cape, South Africa, the Knysna Elephant Park. Observations were made in June–September and in December. In the daytime, handlers managed seven of the elephants for guided interactions with visitors. At night, all elephants were maintained in a large enclosure with six having limited outdoor access. With infrared illumination, the elephants were continuously recorded by video cameras. During the nights, the elephants typically had 1–3 recumbent sleeping/resting bouts, each lasting 1–2 h. Yawning was a regular occurrence upon arousal from a recumbency, especially in the final recumbency of the night. Yawning was significantly more frequent in some elephants. Yawning was rare during the daytime and during periods of standing around in the enclosure at night. In six occurrences of likely contagious yawning, one elephant yawned upon seeing another elephant yawning upon arousal from a final recumbency; we recorded the sex and age category of the participants. The generality of yawning in both African and Asian elephants in other environments was documented in video recordings from 39 zoological facilities. In summary, the study provides evidence that yawning does occur in both African and Asian elephants, and in African elephants, yawning was particularly associated with arousal from nighttime recumbencies.

Contagious Yawning in African Elephants (Loxodonta africana): Responses to Other Elephants and Familiar Humans

“…The results from our nighttime observations, with three instances of contagious yawning meeting the specific criteria, expand upon and confirm our previous report of intraspecific contagious yawning between elephants (20). There were two instances where a standing elephant yawned in response to an arousing elephant yawning and one from a standing elephant yawning in response to another standing elephant yawning.…”

“…Control observations from the previous study showed that spontaneous yawns were unlikely to occur outside of the two-minute period following arousal from a recumbency. As described in our previous study (20), a yawn is characterized as a slow opening of the jaw, a brief frozen open posture and a quick closure of the jaw opening. This behavior is seen most clearly in the attached video clip (Supplementary Video 2) of the elephant yawning in response to a handler yawning.…”

“…Results from the previous study (20) revealed when yawns were most likely to occur in this group of elephants, so observations on intraspecific contagious yawning were focused on final recumbent bouts of the night (generally between 3:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.) and the 2 min just after arousal by each individual elephant. We could then observe whether the yawn triggered a contagious yawn from any of the other elephants.…”

The African Elephant (<i>Loxodonta africana</i>): Mini-Review of an Endangered Species

“…At a private reserve in the Western Cape, South Africa, a study was conducted on captive elephants where it was found that they also yawn and that this behaviour may be associated with stimulation from nighttime recumbencies [76].…”

Earlier than previously thought: Yawn contagion in preschool children

“…For example, within the hominid family, yawn contagion has been shown in chimpanzees (Campbell & Cox, 2019; Campbell & de Waal, 2011), bonobos (Palagi et al., 2014) and humans (Provine, 2005) but not in gorillas (Palagi et al., 2019), thus suggesting that phylogenetic closeness cannot necessarily predict, per se, yawn contagion (Palagi et al., 2020). Outside the primate order, evidence of contagious yawning are reported for dogs and wolves (Neilands et al., 2020; Romero et al., 2013, 2014; Silva et al., 2012), Asian and African elephants (Rossman et al., 2017; Rossman et al., 2020), sheep (Yonezawa et al., 2017), elephant seals (Wojczulanis‐Jakubas et al., 2019) and parrots (Gallup et al., 2015; Miller et al., 2012). The occurrence of yawn contagion may be linked to the level of attention and responsiveness to conspecifics' stimuli.…”