Mellifluous matures to malodorous in musth

Mood-altering secretions by excited male elephants smooth out social interactions. Male Asian elephants in musth — an annual period of heightened sexual activity and intensified aggression — broadcast odoriferous, behaviourally influential messages from secretions of the temporal gland1,2,3,4. From our observations in the wild, together with instantaneous chemical sampling and captive-elephant playback experiments, we have discovered that young, socially immature males in musth signal their naivety by releasing honey-like odours to avoid conflict with adult males, whereas older musth males broadcast malodorous combinations to deter young males, facilitating the smooth functioning of male society. As elephant–human conflicts can upset this equilibrium, chemically modulating male behaviour may be one way to help the conservation of wild elephants.