Wild African elephants may have domesticated themselves

Wild elephants are one of the few known species to show signs of self-domestication. The phenomenon has only previously been documented in humans and bonobos, a closely related primate. Humans have bred animals to maximise traits such as friendliness, sociability and a docile temperament in a process called domestication. Some researchers believe humans and bonobos have gone through a similar process but that they have naturally done it to themselves. Limor Raviv at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands wondered if other species have self-domesticated too.