Elephants Can Smell Water, but the Range Is Unknown

African elephants can locate water by smell. In controlled tests, semi-tame elephants distinguished natural water from control samples using olfactory cues. However, the study confirmed this only at small spatial scales: whether elephants can detect water by smell over kilometers remains unknown. The popular figure “up to three kilometers” should therefore not be treated as an established limit or verified result. The illustration is AI-generated.