Food-Sharing

An individual sharing food with another or others. For example: a male (typically in musth) sharing a tree he has felled with others (usually females and calves); an individual purposefully dropping food, offering food, or putting food into the mouth of another individual who is begging vocally or gesturally (see Solicit-Food) or to one who is incapacitated (e.g. missing most of trunk due to snaring), sick, dying or dead (for the latter see Body-Feeding).

References: Poole & Granli 2021. (Full reference list)

This behavior occurs in the following context(s): Affiliative, Calf Nourishment & Weaning, Foraging & Comfort Technique

Food-sharing

Context: Affiliative (1)

A 9 year old female (foreground) reaches Trunk-to-Mouth to Solicit-Food from younger 7 year female (background) who is feeding on a branch. The younger female Orients-Away, but then appears to purposefully drop the pieces of the branch she was holding and that the older juvenile was soliciting in a possible act of Food-Sharing. She picks up one of the pieces and continues to Orient-Away, while the older female picks up the other piece she had dropped. (Maasai Mara, Kenya)