TANZANIA • Serengeti
October 5-12 2023
Taasa Lodge – Northern Serengeti
Field Entry 03
Elephants & Water in the Dry Season
We hadn’t even reached the lodge yet.
Our first drive from the Lobo airstrip into the Serengeti began with dust, acacia silhouettes, and the tail end of the Great Migration stretching across the horizon. Wildebeest in staggering numbers. Movement in every direction. The landscape felt alive before we had fully arrived.
A lion pride rested not far from the track. Giraffes moved slowly in the distance. But it was the elephants at the riverbank that stopped us.
The river was little more than a shallow ribbon of water — dry season thinning it to its edges. Mud exposed. Banks steep and worn from hooves and years of descent.
We parked at a respectful distance to watch a small group below us.
Two elephants approached from behind.
They could have entered the river at multiple points along the bank. There were easier slopes. Wider access.
They chose the exact opening directly in front of our safari jeep.
They walked toward us with purpose — not aggressive, not hesitant — simply certain. They stepped down the bank, one after the other, and moved toward the remaining water.
Our guide, Eric, quietly began explaining what we were witnessing.
The Science in the Moment
In dry season, water is survival.
African elephants are known for their extraordinary spatial memory. Matriarchs can remember the location of water sources across vast ranges — sometimes over hundreds of kilometers — and across many years. These memory maps guide herd migration when rainfall patterns shift and surface water disappears.
But memory isn’t their only tool.
Elephants can detect water using:
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Scent receptors in their trunks capable of sensing moisture underground
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Low-frequency communication (infrasound) that travels long distances
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Vibrations through the ground, which may signal movement toward resources
The trunk alone contains over 40,000 muscles — an instrument for smelling, digging, siphoning, lifting, and testing.
In dry season landscapes like October in the Serengeti, that trunk becomes a survival tool.
What we watched wasn’t random movement. It was decision-making. We stayed as they drank. The surface rippled around their trunks. Mud shifted beneath their feet. Their ears moved slowly — not flared, not alarmed.
When they were finished, they moved on.
And so did we.
The rest of that first drive continued like something out of a field guide brought to life: giraffes crossing in long strides, a leopard draped in shade, cheetahs scanning the plains.
But the week continued to return us to elephants.
Another morning, we parked beside a female elephant as she de-barked a tree with astonishing precision.
She wrapped her trunk around the tree, twisted, pulled, and stripped away the outer bark.
What she was after was the inner bark layer — the cambium. That inner layer contains moisture and nutrients, especially valuable during dry season when grasses lose nutritional density.
The strength required was immense.
The control was even more impressive.
She did not uproot the tree. She harvested it.
Herd Dynamics
One of the most striking patterns of the week:
When you see one elephant, you rarely see just one.
Their herds are multi-generational — calves, juveniles, sisters, aunts, grandmothers — structured around a matriarch whose knowledge guides survival decisions.
In landscapes as expansive as the Serengeti, their social structure is as important as their biology.
Water, migration, memory — all move through the herd. Science isn’t separate from these moments. It’s embedded in them.
We arrived at Taasa Lodge that afternoon already changed. The Serengeti had not been introduced to us through explanation. It introduced itself through observation. And the elephants led that first lesson.
Creatures Are Our Teachers™
Let Science Run Wild.
Kristen
