Musth or must is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. It has been known in Asian elephants for 3,000 years, but was only described in African elephants in 1981. Evidence indicates that similar behaviour occurred in extinct proboscideans like gomphotheres and mastodons. Elephants often discharge a thick, tar-like secretion called temporin from the temporal gland during musth. Behavioral management for captive bull elephants in musth includes physical restraint and a starvation diet for several days to a week.
Etymology Musth comes from an Urdu term for intoxication; in Persian it means lit. 'intoxicated'.
Biology Musth has been known in Asian elephants for 3000 years, described in the Rigveda, but was recognized in African elephants only in the late twentieth century. In 1975, scientists Joyce Poole and Cynthia Moss were working in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Poole noticed a period of heightened reproductive activity and aggression in male African elephants. She began documenting and describing the physical and behavioral characteristics and temporal (time-related) dynamics among individual males. This led to scientifically identifying musth in African elephants.
Musth is also suggested to have occurred in mammoths, given the testosterone histories from their tusks. Musth-like behaviour is also suggested to have occurred in South American gomphotheres and North American mastodons. Musth differs from rut in that musth most often takes place in winter, whereas the female elephant's estrous cycle is not seasonally linked.
Physical characteristics Elephants in musth often discharge a thick tar-like secretion called temporin from the temporal gland located on the temporal sides of the head. Temporin contains proteins, lipids (including cholesterol), phenol and 4-methyl phenol, cresols and sesquiterpenes (notably farnesol and its derivatives). Secretions and urine collected from zoo elephants have been shown to contain elevated levels of various highly odorous ketones and aldehydes. Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth average 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times, and in some individuals can increase by as much as 140 times.
Behavioral characteristics Musth is believed to be linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance. Wild bulls in musth often produce a characteristic low, pulsating rumbling noise known as "musth rumble" that other elephants can hear from miles away. The rumble has been shown to prompt not only attraction in the form of reply vocalizations from cows in heat, but also silent avoidance behavior from other bulls, particularly juveniles and non-receptive females, suggesting an evolutionary benefit to advertising the musth state. Bull elephants in musth, especially but not only in the wild, are extremely dangerous and have killed keepers/mahouts, livestock, other species, and other bull elephants, female elephants, and calves — the last usually inadvertently or accidentally in what is often called "herd infighting". During the 1990s, young bull rogue elephants killed 63 rhinos of both sexes (58 endangered white rhinos and 5 rare black rhinos) in two South African national parks (Hluhluwe–Imfolozi and Pilanesberg). This was ultimately attributed to an aberrant form of musth. After being rebuffed by older female elephants, the young bulls went after rhinos, killing them. Three young elephant bulls were shot, temporarily ending the killings. Some scientists opined that this was an example of young male elephants permanently changed by the trauma of witnessing their breeding herds culled due to overcrowding in other South African parks. These young bulls had been spared due to their age and size, although herd culls are properly done in entirety, i.e., leaving no survivors to suffer the equivalents of PTSD, survivor guilt, and other disorders or traumas later in life, which could then create or exacerbate human-elephant conflicts or other forms of violence, according to Ron Thomson, a late 20th-century Zimbabwe game warden and Parks Board veteran. South African ecologist and ranger Gus van Dyk, who thought of the idea of reintroducing older males into Pilanesberg to prevent younger males from entering musth, noted that no further rhinoceros killings were observed. In the absence of older males, whose presence inhibits musth in smaller younger bulls, these adolescent bulls had reached puberty (musth) prematurely, which reduced their control and resulted in the "warped behavior of animals who have lost their elders, and who are now flailing in a diminished, disarranged world." It is established that functionally important decision-making abilities may be significantly altered by disruption of the natural structure of kin-based social relationships and that violent disruption "appears capable of driving aberrant behaviours in social animals that are akin to the post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by humans following extremely traumatic events" due to the pachyderms' intelligence, strong emotional family attachments, and prodigious memories. Another interrelated but more generalized theory of why the young elephants went wild was that, owing to culls and herd fragmentation, there were no older elephants to teach and discipline them.
Management
In Sri Lanka and India, domesticated Asian elephants in musth are traditionally tied to a strong tree and denied food and water for a week or so, which shortens the duration of the musth, typically to five to eight days. Sedatives, like xylazine, are also sometimes used. Zoos keeping adult male elephants need strong, purpose-built enclosures to isolate males during their musth.
Cultural depictions Valmiki, in Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana (7th to 4th centuries BCE), made reference to the Mahendra mountain shedding water like an elephant's rut juice upon being pressed by Hanuman. In the Matanga Lila (300 BCE to 300 CE) musth is described: "Excitement, swiftness, odor, love passion, complete florescence of the body, wrath, prowess, and fearlessness are declared to be the eight excellences of musth." Sangam poetry (300 BCE to 300 CE) describes musth. Kummatoor Kannanaar in Pathitrupatthu 12 describes it as follows:
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