The Sumatran Elephant's Forest Pharmacy

In the forest habitat of Sumatra, elephants are not merely plant-eaters with enormous feed requirements. Behind their habits of roaming, selecting leaves, felling trunks, stripping bark and eating young shoots, there lies the possibility of far more complex behaviour: elephants choose plants not only for their nutritional content, but also for specific biological benefits for their bodies.

This phenomenon is known in animal behaviour studies as self-medication. For the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), evidence of such behaviour remains limited, but research at the Seblat Elephant Training Centre (PLG) in Bengkulu is beginning to provide indications that the forest can function as a kind of “natural pharmacy” for elephants.

The research conducted at PLG Seblat identified four plant species that mahouts associate with medicinal functions for Sumatran elephants: putri malu (Mimosa pudica), Clerotopis gigantea, forest betel (Piper aduncum) and Eleutherine palmifolia (Irayani et al., 2025).

The study is significant because it does not rely solely on traditional knowledge, but also carries out phytochemical analysis of plants considered to have health benefits for elephants. The analysis identified compound groups such as flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, steroids and tannins, which in various plants are known to possess biological activities, including antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties (Irayani et al., 2025).

These findings provide a new perspective on how we understand the relationship between elephants and forest vegetation. Until now, plants consumed by elephants have more often been viewed as sources of energy and fibre. In reality, plants are highly complex “chemical packages”. Leaves, bark, roots, shoots, fruit and sap can contain various secondary metabolites that function as plant defences against herbivores, fungi, bacteria and insects.