article_snippet.sent: The old adage that an elephant never forgets appears to be true, based on a touching video showing an Asian elephant returning to her mother after years apart.
article_snippet.sent: It would appear to be true that an elephant never forgets, based on a touching video showing an Asian elephant returning to her mother after years apart (pictured) an elephant is particularly sad because females tend to stick together in herds until females die, sharing incredibly strong bonds.
article_snippet.sent: Asian elephants remember old friends and have large social networks of friends, a 2011 study found.
article_snippet.sent: Researchers claimed that just like humans, some elephants are social butterflies, while other prefer to stick to a close-knit group of friends.
article_snippet.sent: Past studies suggested elephants usually live in small groups centred around females and elephants young while adult males live independently.
article_snippet.sent: Study author Dr Shermin de Silva from the University of Pennsylvania said: 'Elephants are able to track one another over large distances by calling to each other and using Elephants sense of smell. '
article_snippet.sent: So the 'herd' of elephants one sees at any given time is often only a fragment of a much larger social group. '
article_snippet.sent: The emotional moment the pair were reunited shows the elephants caressing each other with their trunks and flapping their ears – seemingly in joy - after spending an uncertain half an hour together where the keepers thought the keepers may be worried about being separated again.
article_snippet.sent: A previous study conducted at the park by Mahidol University in Thailand and Emory University in the US, found that elephants comfort each other when elephants are stressed by chirping softly and stroking each other's heads and genitals.
article_snippet.sent: Psychologist and elephant behaviour expert, Preston Foerder, of the University of Tennessee, said elephants are communicating with touch, as well as sound and sight, because elephants trunks are so sensitive.
article_snippet.sent: However, animal behaviour expert Frans de Waal of Emory University, said that it's possible elephants don't remember each other, but are just a compatible pair. '
article_snippet.sent: There is no doubt about elephant feelings and bonding, but we humans like to read the mother-child relation into this,' animal behaviour expert Frans de Waal of Emory University said. '