Behavioral Alterations and Avoiding Parasites

Abstract

Abstract If you are ever in India or Nepal during the fly season and have occasion to watch captive elephants (of the sort that take tourists into the jungle), you may have the opportunity to see yet another kind of behavior imposed by the presence of parasites. Elephants that swat their backs and sides with branches are not performing stereotypic behavior out of boredom. They are not necessarily cooling themselves. They are using tools to repel blood-feeding flies (fig. 4.1). Switching intensifies with fly activity, and elephants that are given branches can reduce median fly count by almost half (Hart and Hart 1994).