Elephant Reproduction and life cycle

Reproduction and life cycle
Elephants live in small family groups led by old females (cows).
Where food is plentiful, the groups join together.
Most males (bulls) live in bachelor herds apart from the cows.
Males and females both possess two glands that open between the eye and ear.
Elephants of all ages and sexes secrete a fluid called temporin out of this orifice.
Males, however, enter a “musth period,” during which they secrete a fluid differing in viscosity from the fluid secreted when they are not in musth.
Serum testosterone during musth is higher than in a nonmusth elephant, and the animal’s behaviour is erratic; they are uncontrollable (musth is Hindi for “intoxicated”), sometimes even by their own handlers (mahouts).
Musth is the time for establishing reproductive hierarchy, which can differ from the usual social hierarchy in that a male in musth outranks nonmusth males.
In the wild, males are usually at their prime physical state during musth and ordinarily do most of the breeding.