An elephant graveyard (also written elephant's graveyard or elephants' graveyard) is a place where, according to legend, older elephants instinctively direct themselves when they reach a certain age. They then die there alone, far from the group.

Origin

The concept may have originated from skeletons and old elephants being found in the same habitat^[1]. Archaeologists have also found areas with large numbers of mammal skeletons, including 27 Palaeoloxodon antiquus skeletons, in Saxony-Anhalt, however here human intervention was indicated with the tusks removed in most cases.^[2] Binomial name Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus (Falconer & Cautley, 1847) The Straight-tusked Elephant (Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus or Palaeoloxodon antiquus) inhabited Middle and Late Pleistocene continental Europe. ... With an area of 20,447 km² and a population of 2. ...

Another possibility is that old elephants may gather in particular areas where finding food is easier, and subsequently die there.^[3] In this vein Rupert Sheldrake, noting that elephant skeletons are frequently found in groups near permanent sources of water, suggests that elephants suffering from malnutrition instinctively seek out sources of water in the hopes of improving their condition. The elephants that do not improve develop increasingly low blood sugar and eventually become comatose and die, near the water (and near the remains of other malnourished elephants). This is also the fate of old elephants, whose teeth become worn out, seeking out soft water plants. This typically happens after their sixth set of teeth.^[4] Rupert Sheldrake Rupert Sheldrake, Ph. ... In medicine, a coma (from the Greek koma, meaning deep sleep) is a profound state of unconsciousness, which may result from a variety of conditions including intoxication (drug, alcohol or toxins), metabolic abnormalities (hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, ketoacidosis, etc. ...

In popular culture

The myth was popularised in films such as Trader Horn and MGM's Tarzan talkies, in which groups of greedy explorers attempt to locate the elephants' graveyard, on the fictional Mutia Escarpment, in search of its riches of ivory.^[5] Trader Horn (1931) was the first film shot on location in Africa. ... Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) is an action adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith & Maureen OSullivan. ...

Other references include:

• The Disney animated film The Lion King featured a prominent scene in an elephant graveyard.
• An episode of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest finds Jonny helping an elderly elephant reach the area.
• An elephant graveyard also appears in the Asterix volume Asterix and the Magic Carpet.
• In the MMORPG World of Warcraft there is a kodo graveyard, a reference to the elephant graveyard.

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... This article is about Disneys 1994 film. ... The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and broadcast on Cartoon Network from August 26, 1996 to April 16, 1997. ... For other uses, see Asterix (disambiguation). ... Asterix and the Magic Carpet is the twenty-eighth volume of the Asterix comic book series, by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). ... World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the fourth game in the Warcraft series, excluding expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. ...

Currrent meanings

In geology, "elephants' graveyard" is an informal term for a hypothetical accumulation of "large blocks of country rock stoped from the roofs of batholiths"^[6]. This article includes a list of works cited but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ...

Notes

1. ^ Armitage, Kenneth B. (Mar 1992). "The Great Beast - Elephant Life: Fifteen Years of High Population Density". Bioscience 42 (3): 196-197. 
2. ^ Brühl, Enrico; Dietrich Mania (22-25 September 2003). "Neumark-Nord: a late middle Pleistocene lake shore with synchronous sites of different functional character". Données récentes sur les modalités de peuplement en Europe au Paléolithique inférieur et moyen, Rennes: Université de Rennes. 
3. ^ Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Richard Barnes, Hezy Shoshani, A. Christy Williams, A. J. T. Johnsingh, Robin Beck, Katy Payne "Elephants" The Encyclopedia of Mammals. Ed. David W. Macdonald. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.28 August 2007 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t227.e47>
4. ^ Elephant issue of Zoobooks
5. ^ Earnhart, Brady (01 July 2007). "A Colony of the Imagination: Vicarious Spectatorship in MGM's Early Tarzan Talkies". Quarterly Review of Film and Video 24 (4): 341-352. Retrieved on 27 August 2007. 
6. ^ Clarke, D. Barrie; Andrew S. Henry, Mary Anne White (10 September 1998). "Exploding xenoliths and the absence of 'elephants' graveyards' in granite batholiths". Journal of Structural Geology 20 (9-10): 1325-1343. 

Zoobooks is a monthly magazine for kids. ...

External links

• The Elephant Debate - Contains information about the elephant graveyard myth.