Researchers have seen a weak‑looking elephant deliberately gnawing the bark of a medicinal tree, and they have also watched mother elephants add a plant with known healing properties to their milk before feeding it to calves.

The new study recorded 35 different plant species that Mount Elgon elephants reportedly use. Of these, 34 are also employed by local people in traditional medicine, and eight of the nine most frequently mentioned plants have been shown in scientific literature to possess pharmacological effects.

The information comes from interviews with eight members of the Sabaot community – wildlife scouts, guides and elders – who have lived alongside the elephants for decades.

Elodie Freymann, a post‑doctoral fellow at Brown University and co‑author of the paper published in Nature, says the findings highlight how elephant health depends on a rich variety of plants. She adds that more research is needed before scientists can confirm that the animals are intentionally self‑medicating.

If elephants truly rely on these botanical remedies, protecting the diverse habitats of Mount Elgon becomes even more urgent, because losing plant species would also mean losing the natural medicines that both people and wildlife depend on.