African Alpha Elephant

Male African elephants have life-history traits of longevity, indeterminate growth, and large sexual dimorphism (Laws et al. 1975; Lee and Moss 1995; Sukumar 2003), suggesting a high degree of size-dependent competition for mates, favoring larger, older individuals (Maynard-Smith and Brown 1986). Not surprisingly, dominance rank and fighting success are largely determined by size and, therefore, age (Poole 1987, 1989a, 1989b), suggesting increased paternity success with age.