Indian elephant mother with young Anup Shah/Nature PL
Female Asian elephants stop reproducing towards the end of their lives, putting them among a very small number of species that experience something akin to the menopause.
Only humans, orcas, narwhals, beluga whales and short-finned pilot whales are known to exhibit what biologists call extended post-reproductive lifespan. The existence of such a stage is an evolutionary riddle: why should individuals give up trying to leave more descendants?
Simon Chapman at the University of Turku, Finland, and his colleagues studied records of 3802 female Asian elephants that worked in timber camps in Myanmar…
