According to legend, when an elephant knows it's nearing the end of its days, it will return to a specific place to die among the remains of its kin, and over time, these remains will form "elephant graveyards" that tower with tusks and skulls.
The idea is so powerful that it has made its way into popular culture, such as in Disney's "The Lion King," where haunting images of an elephant cemetery seared themselves onto the minds of a generation of children. Such graveyards hint at the tantalizing prospect that elephants might understand and anticipate their own mortality. But do these places really exist, and do elephants know when they are about to die?
