Mount Elgon elephants may self-heal, researchers investigate hypothesis

On the slopes of the extinct volcano Mount Elgon, on the Kenya-Uganda border, residents have long observed elephants selecting specific plants — even when not hungry. Sick animals reach for particular species, and females pass them to their young. Fabien Schultz from the Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, along with teams from Britain, Kenya and the USA, has decided to test the hypothesis that elephants self-medicate.