Everland Animal Hospital, Yongin 17023, Korea.
Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea.
J Vet Sci. 2024 Nov;25(6):e76. doi: 10.4142/jvs.24060.
When male elephants reach sexual maturity, they exhibit excessive sexual behaviors called musths. The musth period is important in the management of elephant herds. However, the timing of the musth and the effect of musth elephants on non-musth elephants in Korea have not been clearly analyzed.
In our observations, one male elephant (Koshik), who had been alone with a female, was observed to be on musth from age 15, while another young male elephant (Udara), who joined the group later, was not observed to be on musth at age 15, moreover the male elephants that were found to be on musth earlier had a longer duration of musth after the introduction of the other male. Furthermore, we also found that Koshik's testosterone levels increased approximately 200-fold during musth (the lowest level was 0.93 ng/mL) compared to before musth (the highest level was 214 ng/mL).
We found that the duration and behavior of musth in captive male elephants were affected by the introduction of other growing male elephants.
当雄性大象达到性成熟时，它们会表现出过度的性行为，称为发情期。发情期在象群管理中很重要。然而，韩国的发情期时间以及发情期大象对非发情期大象的影响尚未得到明确分析。
在我们的观察中，一只曾与一只雌性单独相处的雄性大象（Koshik）从 15 岁开始发情，而另一只较年轻的雄性大象（Udara），后来加入了这个群体，15 岁时并未被观察到发情，此外，较早被发现发情的雄性大象在引入另一只雄性大象后，发情期持续时间更长。此外，我们还发现，Koshik 的睾丸激素水平在发情期间增加了约 200 倍（最低水平为 0.93ng/mL），而发情前的最高水平为 214ng/mL。
我们发现，圈养雄性大象发情的持续时间和行为受到引入其他成长中雄性大象的影响。
