Musth elephant temporal gland secretions

Rasmussen, L. E. L. (1988). Chemosensory responses in two species of elephants to constituents of temporal gland secretion and musth unrvt. Journal of Chemical Ecology 14, 1687-1711. 

Rasmussen, L. E. L., Hess, D. L., and Haight, J. D., 1990, Chemical analysis of temporal gland secretions collected from an Asian bull elephant during a four-month musth episode, J. Chem. Ecol. 16(7) 2I67-2181. 

Rasmussen, L. E. L., Perrin, T. E., and Ounawardena, R., 1994, Isolation of potential musth-alerting signals from temporal gland secretions of male Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), a new method, Chem. Senses 19(5) 540. 

TEMPORAL GLAND SECRETION SIGNALS DURING MUSTH IN MALE ASIAN ELEPHANTS... 

Table II. Temporal properties and chemical identities of potential chemical signals from temporal gland secretions of Asian male elephants in musth...

Figure 1. Deviant behavior (O) and serum testosterone concentration ( ) of a captive Asian bull elephant (Packy, 32 years old) throughout a musth episode (premusth through postmusth). Deviant behavior was the weekly mean of five individual behaviors each graded on a 0-4 scale daily. Serum testosterone (ng/ml) was measured weekly. Solid arrows indicate start and end of temporal gland secretion (TGS), which was delineated as the musth period. The dashed arrow indicates the beginning of urine dribbling (cessation was simultaneous with end of TGS).

Figure 4. Testosterone concentration (ng/ml) in temporal gland secretion and relative abundance of four groups (I-IV) of compounds present in TGS over the course of musth in Tunga, an Asian bull elephant (a different elephant from the previous figures). Group I cyclohexanone, benzoic acid, phenylacetic acid, phenylpropanoic acid, octanoic acid, 3-octen-2-one and4-n-nonylphenol. Group II 5-nonanol, 2-hydroxyacetophenone, 1,3 dihydro-2H-indol-2-one, 2-nonanone, unidentified and 3-nonen-2-one. Group III phenol, decanoic acid and famesol. Group IV 4-hexenoic acid, tetradecanoic acid, pentadecanoic acid, hexadecanoic acid and dotriacontanol.

A. Adult female elephants. All the females of the elephant herd at the Washington Park Zoo, including the young female calf, exhibit flehmen (Figure 6) cows have been observed to exhibit flehmen responses to the urine of other cows, to human urine (male and female), to male musth urine, to female urogenital mucous secretions, to both male and female temporal gland secretions (Table 3). A maximum of 3 flehmen responses in sequence... 

First identified in Asian elephants during a headspace analysis of volatiles collected from secretions of the musth temporal gland of adult males,156 frontalin (52) is a bicyclic ketal, which is structurally reminiscent of the male mouse priming pheromone component 3,4-dehydro-ara-brevicomin (37). Frontalin (52), Z-7-dodecen-l-yl acetate (51), was already known because of its chemosensory role in the insect world it is an aggregation pheromone in bark beetles.157 Interestingly, the ratio of the two enantiomers of frontalin (52) changes with age and stage of musth and elicits different behavioral responses.158... 

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