Musth or must (from Persian, lit. 'intoxicated')^[1] is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones.

Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be on average 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times (in specific individuals these testosterone levels can even reach as much as 140 times the normal).^[2] However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth or merely a contributing factor is unknown.

In 1975, scientists Joyce Poole and Cynthia Moss were working in Amboseli National Park. Poole noticed a period of heightened reproductive activity and aggression in male elephants. She began documenting and describing the physical and behavioral characteristics and temporal patterning of among individual males. This led to scientifically identifying musth in African elephants.^[3] Scientific investigation of musth is problematic because even the most placid elephants become violent toward humans and other elephants during musth.^{[citation needed]}

Musth differs from rut in that the female elephant's estrus cycle is not seasonally linked, whereas musth most often takes place in winter.^[4] Furthermore, bulls in musth have often been known to attack female elephants, regardless of whether or not the females are in heat.

Musth-like behaviour is also suggested to have occurred in extinct proboscideans, including mammoths,^[5] gomphotheres^[6] and mastodons.^[7]

Effects

Secretions

Elephants in musth often discharge a thick tar-like secretion called temporin from the temporal ducts on the sides of the head. Temporin contains proteins, lipids (notably cholesterol), phenol and 4-methyl phenol,^[8][9] cresols and sesquiterpenes (notably farnesol and its derivatives).^[10] Secretions and urine collected from zoo elephants have been shown to contain elevated levels of various highly odorous ketones and aldehydes.

The elephant's aggression may be partially caused by a reaction to the temporin, which naturally trickles down into the elephant's mouth.^{[citation needed]} Another contributing factor may be the accompanying swelling of the temporal glands, which presses on the elephant's eyes and causes acute pain comparable to severe toothache. Elephants sometimes try to counteract this pain by digging their tusks into the ground.

Behavior

Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance, but this relationship is far from clear. Wild bulls in musth often produce a characteristic low, pulsating rumbling noise (known as "musth rumble") which can be heard by other elephants for considerable distances. 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.^[11][12]

The grisly outbreak in the 1990s of rogue elephants goring over 100 rhinoceroses to death without provocation in two national parks in South Africa was attributed to dysfunctional young males -- translocated survivors of incomplete or non-herd based culls of elephants at another overcrowded park -- growing in the absence of older males and prematurely entering musth.^[13] South African ecologist and ranger Gus van Dyk who thought of the idea of reintroducing older males into the parks to prevent younger males from entering musth, noted that no further rhinoceros killings were observed.^{[14][12][15][16]}

A musth elephant, whether in the wild or otherwise, is extremely dangerous to both humans and other elephants. In zoos, bull elephants in musth have killed keepers/mahouts, as well as other bull males, female elephants, and calves (the last usually inadvertently or accidentally). Zoos keeping adult male elephants need strong, purpose-built enclosures to isolate males during their musth, which greatly complicates attempting to breed elephants in zoos; most zoos that keep a single elephant or a small herd typically have only females for this reason.^[17]

In Sri Lanka and India, domesticated elephants in musth are traditionally tied to a strong tree and denied food and water, or put on a starvation diet, for several days, after which the musth passes. This method greatly shortens the duration of the musth, typically to five to eight days; sedatives, like xylazine, are also used.^[18][19]

References in popular culture

References to elephants in musth (whose temporin secretion is often referred to as "ichor") are frequent in classical Indian poetry and prose; for example, in the Raghuvaṃśa, Kalidasa says that the king's elephants drip ichor in seven streams to match the scent put forth by the seven-leaved 'sapta-cchada' (= "seven-leaf") tree (perhaps Alstonia scholaris). Some poets turn it around to compare the elephant's ichor to the sapta-cchada. The phenomenon has been described in poetry long before the time of Kalidasa, in Sanskrit, Tamil and Pali literature.

Valmiki, in Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana, makes reference to the Mahendra mountain shedding water like an elephant's rut juice upon being pressed by Hanuman.^[20]

Shooting an Elephant is an autobiographical account by George Orwell in which he describes how an elephant in Burma had an attack of musth and killed an Indian, which in turn led to the death of the elephant.

Sangam poetry describes musth. Kummatoor Kannanaar in Pathitrupatthu 12 describes it as follows:

It was sweet to hear of your victories and fame
and I came here desiring to see you.
I came with my big family, passing few mountains
where noble, young male elephants with coarse hair
and swaying walks have musth flowing from their
cheek glands and elephant mothers with calves
wave wild jasmine twigs,
chasing striped bees that swarm on the sweet musth.^[21]

The Tamil movie Kumki, which revolves around a mahout and his trained elephant, shows the elephant in musth towards the climax. Captive elephants are either trained for duties in temples and cultural festivals or trained as a kumki elephant which confronts wild elephants and prevents them from entering villages. Elephants trained for temple duties are of a gentle nature and cannot face wild elephants. In this movie, a tribal village wants to hire a kumki elephant to chase away wild elephants which enter the village every harvest season. The mahout, who needs money, takes his temple-trained elephant to do this job, in the vain hope that wild elephants will not come in. But wild elephants start attacking the village on the harvest day. The temple-trained elephant enters musth and thus fights with the wild elephants, kills the most notorious among the herd, and dies from injuries sustained during the fight.

In his James Bond novel The Man With the Golden Gun, Ian Fleming wrote that the villain Francisco Scaramanga was driven to become a cold-blooded assassin after authorities shot an elephant that he had ridden in his circus act because the elephant went on a rampage while in musth.

In Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg buys an elephant which was being fed sugar and butter so it would go into musth for combat purposes; however, the animal has been on this regimen for a relatively short time so the condition has not yet presented.