Are fast-moving elephants really running?

摘要

It is generally thought that elephants do not run, but there is confusion about how fast they can move across open terrain and what gait they use at top speed. Here we use video analysis to show that Asian elephants (Elephas maximus L.) can move at surprisingly high speeds of up to 6.8 m s~(1) (25 km h~(-1)) and that, although their gait might seem to be a walk even at this speed, some features of their locomotion conform to definitions of running. Elephants moving rapidly have been estimated to reach speeds of about 4 m s~(-1) (15 km h~(-1)), although anecdotal evidence claims that they can reach 11 m s~(-1) (40 km h~(-1)). To investigate the gait used by elephants at top speeds, we used video analysis to study 42 healthy, active Asian elephants throughout Thailand (for details, see supplementary information). The skin was marked with non-toxic tempera paint dots over the limb-joint centres of the elephants (right fore- and hindlimbs; Fig. 1), estimated by palpation and manipulation of the joints; these dots were used for later video digitizing. Mahouts guided the elephants along a 30-metre course, parallel to the field of view of the video camera (60 Hz). Elephants had at least 10 m to accelerate or decelerate before and after this 30-m course. A total of 188 trials were carried out; trials with sudden accelerations or decelerations in the 10-m videotaped stretch of the course were omitted.