African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) are the world's largest living land-based animals, reaching a height between 10 and 13 feet (roughly 3 to 4 meters) and weighing between 4 to 7 tons. One in particular, Doma, is the most dominant male in his group. Yet he seems to have developed this superiority as much through charisma and kindness as from sheer girth. All the other elephants in his herd run to him at the first sign of trouble; during calmer times, they willingly present him with their rumps in a seeming sign of submission.
One day Doma's popularity's with a particularly playful female led to a special moment for a human — Vesta Eleuteri, a PhD student at the University of Vienna's Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Biology, who witnessed a Doma moment of courtship quite intimately.
"I found myself a meter away a greeting between Doma and Kariba and could feel the rumbles echoing in my body and smell the elephants (and even secretions!) so close," Eleuteri told Salon. "It felt like it was easier for me to feel what they were feeling in that moment."
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