Purposeful Play
When you think about an animal’s struggle for survival in the wild, “play” might not seem like an important or worthwhile activity. Yet, play appears to be a normal activity for many animals, and play behaviors have been consistently observed in a range of animals of all ages, from rats¹ to dolphins². Research has suggested that play behaviors are complicated and multi-faceted, presenting both important benefits and costs that continue to intrigue scientists and invite further study.
Through the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP), Phyllis Lee and AERP co-founder Cynthia Moss investigated the play behavior of elephants over a 35-year period, following 63 family units from birth to adulthood³. This long-term study, published in 2014, has given us greater insight into the lasting effects of play on an elephant’s social ties and overall health. The Amboseli ecosystem, which expands across the Kenya-Tanzania border, is an unusual hub for wildlife in an arid climate because of its system of swamps. At its core is Amboseli National Park, which covers 392 square kilometers and has provided researchers with a unique opportunity to observe the daily lives of around 1,500 free-ranging African elephants⁴.
First of all, what do researchers mean by “play”? Historically, defining play has posed a challenge to scientists, since it is so dependent on context. Generally, play has been defined as a voluntary, intrinsically motivated behavior that is not associated with a direct or immediate increase in fitness; i.e., not foraging for food or seeking a mate⁵. Play can be solitary, as in playing with an object, but it is often a social activity. As highly intelligent and socially oriented mammals, elephants engage in various types of play throughout their lives.
To explore these behaviors, Moss and Lee conducted two systematic studies, one on calves from newborn to 5 years old, and another on males aged 10 to 16 years old who were beginning to leave their birth families. The researchers also considered the “anecdotal evidence”³ collected after many years of following the same individuals in their final analysis. Moss and Lee collected data with a mixture of focal observations and scan sampling. Focal observations entail recording all the actions of one particular elephant for a certain amount of time, while scan sampling takes a more general look at a group’s behavior⁶.
The behaviors were grouped into categories, like “tactile play” and “contact play”. For example, playing with mud or vegetation would count as tactile play, while pretend-sparring with a sibling would be contact play. Moss and Lee found that the age, sex, and energy level of an elephant affected the type of play they participated in. Even though the frequency of play tended to decline with age, 40 and even 50-year old elephants were seen occasionally engaging in friendly roughhousing with their relatives³. Surprisingly, the amount of time a calf spent suckling its mother — i.e., their energy intake — didn’t affect how often they played. However, the results still suggested that play was costly, as the frequency of play decreased during stressful drought periods. Additionally, playful calves lived an average of 23.6 years, while less playful calves lived only an average 19.9 years³.
As they age, play begins to take on different roles for females and males. Although both sexes began to expand their social circle after the first year of life, males ventured away from their families more often³. By play-sparring, a male elephant can build bonds with other juvenile males who can help him once he leaves the family group as a young bachelor³. Lee and Moss also found that older females tend to engage in “allomothering play”, or gentle playing with young calves. For females, playfulness appears to be part of an individual’s “personality”, and is often associated with a female’s sociability and leadership skills³.
Moss and Lee’s work with the Amboseli elephants suggests that play is not just an important part of an elephant’s social development, but also an indicator of good health and survival. Their research, and further research in play behavior, may prove beneficial to elephant conservation. A greater understanding of how play builds social bonds, and how the stress caused by human activity can affect these bonds, may help us to better promote healthy elephant families in the future.
References:
¹ Pellis, Sergio M., Vivien C. Pellis, and Heather C. Bell. “The function of play in the development of the social brain.” American Journal of Play 2, no. 3 (2010): 278–296. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1069225.
² McCowan, Brenda, Lori Marino, Erik Vance, Leah Walke, and Diana Reiss. “Bubble ring play of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): Implications for cognition.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 114, no. 1 (2000): 98. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-13658-009?doi=1.
³ Lee, Phyllis C., and Cynthia J. Moss. “African elephant play, competence and social complexity.” Animal Behavior and Cognition 1, no. 2 (2014): 144–156. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270620894_African_Elephant_Play_Competence_and_Social_Complexity.
⁴ “Amboseli & Us.” Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Amboseli Elephant Research Project. Retrieved from https://www.elephanttrust.org/index.php/amboseli-us.
⁵ Miller, Lance J. “Creating a common terminology for play behavior to increase cross-disciplinary research.” Learning & behavior 45, no. 4 (2017): 330–334. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13420-017-0286-x.
⁶ Altmann, Jeanne. “Observational study of behavior: sampling methods.” Behaviour 49, no. 3–4 (1974): 227–266. Retrieved from http://www.uwyo.edu/animalcognition/altmann1974.pdf.
