Musth in Female Asiatic Elephant

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I am uploading a record of Musth in Female Asiatic Elephant in the wild. In Africa, one can find both male and females in musth. This record is from Bandipur Tiger Reserve. There was an earlier record of Musth in female elephant, I think from a captive elephant in Srilanka.

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Quite clearly seen in this image. I am off to Africa next month to Malawi and Botswana (on official visit ) . Will try and capture images of african elephants, let me see if my luck gets me to see any in Musth. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Rare and beautiful documentation. An excellent page of Nature for learners.
The cow elephant looks 'Full' , may be pregnant. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild


Note: Let me quote from what our great teacher has observed and recorded:

"Almost invariably, it is an adult bull that gets into musth, But in rare cases a cow may do so. ........
All the cow elephants I have seen in musth were probably pregnant: of the 2 observed within survey period (Bandipur, Kerala; photograph of pregnant cow in musth in Periyar), one was heavily and patently pregnant, the other was very probably pregnant, appearing to be well-fleshed and in full condition. It could be that the rare incidence of musth in cow elephants in some way related to pregnancy."-M.Krishnan

Indebtedness:
Bombay Natural History Society
Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Shaktipadaji,
Thanks a lot for sharing these words of our great master. This elephant too looked pregnant and appeared to be shielded by others.

I need to get this book.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

This is the first time I've heard of this. It would be very interesting to document more instances of musth in females, and to study its significance in terms of behavioural changes in the wild.
Thanks for sharing Sabyasachi.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

I was stunned to see this. had heard a local mahout once talk about this and thought he was fibbing. this is truly a great natural history record.

tfs
Roopak