I feel like they're an under-discussed/underreported (at least outside of academia) part of animalsMany animal matriarchies have them and young male 'teenagers' complete the rest of their learning in bachelor groups sometimes actually guided by a much older 'alpha' male
Animals that form bachelor groups include >Elephant>Horse (Wild/Feral)>Dolphin (Bottlenose)>Lion>Cape Buffalo>Giraffe>Elk / Red Deer>Zebra>Manatee>Bison>Sperm Whale>Humpback Whale>Gelada (Monkey)>Hamadryas Baboon>Chimpanzee>Elephant Seal>Fur Seal / Sea Lion
>>5079703Sea otters:>Sea otters are social animals, with females with pups coming together to rest in groups known as rafts, which are sometimes guarded by a territorial male. Kelp and eelgrass often form a canopy on the ocean surface, much like trees in a forest from canopy overhead. Sea otters will gather in patches of kelp or eelgrass canopy to rest, even securing themselves by wrapping in long strands. Mothers of young pups will often leave their pups in kelp surface canopy when they dive in search of food. Bachelor males (young males, males that haven’t acquired territories, and territorial males on “breaks”) will often gather in all male rafts where they rest and spar with one another in play-like bouts that rarely result in injury. In contrast, when guarding a territory, territorial males will attempt to exclude all other males---sometimes aggressively.
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>>5082012I feel like you didn't really post a strong question or prompt to discuss in your OP, just the notion of bachelor groups >sometimes actually guided by a much older 'alpha' malethis is interesting to me I remember reading about how the poaching of older male elephants for their tusks led to massive behavioral problems among younger male elephants going through musth, the older males played an important role in controlling the bad behaviors of the younger ones
>>5082017Yeah, but it's mostly hormonal All elephants have glands in their mouths to detect the pheromones emitted by elephants during musth Evolutionarily, younger elephants end their musth much earlier when they sense these hormones but only if they're from an older male
>>5082026what the younger elephants were doing is bullying and maiming infants in the herd.there is no hormone that tells you to hurt children. it's a learned behavior, these young male elephants were being assholes and they needed to have this behavior be corrected, but no elephant in their herd was strong enough to do it.It reminds me a lot of the "teen violence" problem. Is it due to hormones/genetics? Yes. Is it due to culture? Also yes. Almost every single question in evolutionary psychology comes down to this. you cannot really separate complex societal behaviors into either biological or societal buckets.
>>5082029Good point
>>5082026Those Elephants did not complete their species specific socialization and ended up maladjusted with no older male to learn from/keep them humble. Literal daddy issues.
Have you guys seen this?An orphan elephant was adopted by a herd of buffaloes and grew up to be the matriarch of the herd: https://old.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFuckingLit/comments/1gwdanj/elephant_matriarch_of_buffaloes/
>>5084915It's a pretty famous story, especially the part about her killing bulls frequently, and sometimes calves. Socialization is important.
