In the minutes after a birth, an adult female picking up, carrying, placing in her mouth and ingesting part of the birth-sac and/or placenta.
Elephant Aware observed a family of about 20 elephants at around noon on December 2017 a few minutes after one of the younger adult females had given birth. The wobbly newborn was surrounded by the excited and very attentive family, while the mother was focused on the afterbirth.
About an hour after the infant was born she began to pick up the placenta with her trunk. She swung it vigorously in the air for at least 20 minutes. At one point she draped it over her head and her tusks and by the end she was covered in blood and dust. Throughout this display she also ate small portions of the placenta until most of it was consumed. Once the elephants had moved on Elephant Aware examined the birth site and found nothing of the placenta remaining.
We share two short clips of her behavior from two different cameras. (Maasai Mara, Kenya)
