Bisexuality is everywhere in the natural world. As we’ve covered here before, scientists have observed same-sex behavior in more than 1,500 species so far. And yet, some of the biggest examples too often fly under the radar. This is especially true in the case of everyone’s favorite tusked giants, elephants.
Researchers have known for decades that same-sex behavior is common among elephants. In the 1990s, studies found that about 45% of elephant sexual interactions were between same-sex individuals. Somewhat more recently, endearing stories about bi elephants have been spread across the web, including Tilly and Mae Kham Puan, a female pair in Thailand’s Elephant Nature Park. Other cases, such as an elephant in a Polish zoo named Ninio who mated with other males, made headlines in 2009 when a politician said, “We didn’t pay 37 million zlotys [$11 million] for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there.” Naturally, that Polish politician was ridiculed across the web, and a good time was had by all. Photojournalists have also captured some of the most memeable images of male elephants mounting one another.
That’s all well and cute, but when one searches for actual scientific research on elephant bisexuality, not just individual cases, the offerings are scant. How could this be? It’s not as though elephants are some obscure species of tree frog who live entirely within a 14-acre span deep in the rainforest, or some primordial toothed fish living in the fathomless depths of uncharted waters where light doesn’t reach. Elephants are highly unique, impossible to miss, and among the most widely beloved animals on the planet. They’re also among the most studied. A search for “elephant” on Google Scholar turns up nearly 1.3 million results as of the time of writing. What gives?
Researchers in 2024, writing in the journal PLoS One, looked into just this question. They wanted to figure out why, if same-sex behavior is so common in the animal world, the research is so scarce beyond a handful of species (mostly primates). Surveying 65 zoologists who have worked extensively in the field, and found that 77% of them observed same-sex behaviors in the animals they studied, including elephants, but, as a CNN write-up described, “only 48% collected data on these behaviors and even fewer — just 18% — had published papers on these findings.”
Part of the explanation is due to a disconnect between perception and reality:
Many respondents reported that their lack of recording data or publishing on SSSB [same-sex sexual behavior] was due to a perception that it was very rare,’ Karyn Anderson, a PhD candidate in evolutionary anthropology at the University of Toronto, who led the study, told CNN. ‘When looked at on a broader scale, we found instead that it was very commonly observed by our survey participants.
This is what’s known as a negative feedback loop. The perception that same-sex behavior is rare leads researchers to disregard it when they see it, contributing to the very same misperception. Scientists also told the Plos One researchers that same-sex behavior was often not a research priority, and that including such data would make scientific journals less likely to publish their studies.
Even the mighty elephant, it appears, is not immune to bi-erasure, but the fact remains, elephants are as bi as their trunks are long. You can choose not to publish the research results, but the truth is there for all to see.