Elephants have taught themselves to peel bananas

Elephants are known for their intelligence and unique trunk skills, but a recent discovery has pushed the limits of our understanding of these majestic creatures. 

A study published in the journal Current Biology on April 10 describes fascinating behavior exhibited by an Asian elephant named Pang Pha, who lives at the Berlin Zoo. Pang Pha has learned to peel bananas – a skill she picked up all on her own, and one that has not been observed in elephants before.

The study’s authors believe that the female elephant most likely learned this unusual behavior by observing her caretakers peel bananas for her. According to the researchers, this finding in a single elephant suggests that elephants as a species possess advanced cognitive and manipulative abilities.

Michael Brecht of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, a co-author of the study, remarked: “We discovered a very unique behavior. What makes Pang Pha’s banana peeling so unique is a combination of factors – skillfulness, speed, individuality, and the putatively human origin – rather than a single behavioral element.”

Interestingly, Pang Pha does not peel every banana she consumes. Like other elephants, she eats green or yellow bananas whole and rejects brown bananas altogether. However, when it comes to yellow bananas with brown spots – the kind typically used for making banana bread – she peels them first.

Brecht and his colleagues, Lena Kaufmann, also at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Andreas Ochs from the Berlin Zoological Garden, were initially puzzled by Pang Pha’s selective banana-peeling behavior. They discovered that she only peels yellow-brown bananas, which helped their research gain traction.

When presented with a group of yellow-brown bananas, Pang Pha alters her behavior, eating as many bananas as possible whole and saving the last one to peel later. None of the other elephants at the Berlin Zoo have been observed engaging in this behavior, making it an exceptionally rare occurrence.

The researchers speculate that Pang Pha acquired the skill of peeling bananas through observational learning from her human caretakers, who hand-raised her at the Berlin Zoo. While they never explicitly taught her to peel bananas, they did feed her peeled ones. 

Previous reports on African elephants have shown that they can interpret human pointing gestures and classify people into ethnic groups. However, complex human-derived manipulation behaviors, such as banana-peeling, are considered extremely rare.

The findings in Pang Pha’s case indicate that elephants, in general, possess impressive cognitive abilities and manipulative skills. “Elephants have truly remarkable trunk skills and that their behavior is shaped by experience,” said Brecht.

The fact that Pang Pha alone picked up on banana peeling has prompted the researchers to question whether such habits are typically passed on through elephant families. They are now exploring other sophisticated trunk behaviors, including tool use, to gain a deeper understanding of these extraordinary animals.

Elephants consistently demonstrate amazing intelligence

Elephants are widely recognized as highly intelligent and sentient creatures. Various studies and observations have provided evidence for their advanced cognitive abilities and emotional depth. Some key examples of their intelligence and sentience include:

1. Problem-solving skills: Elephants are known for their ability to solve problems and adapt to new situations. They have been observed using their trunks to manipulate objects, access water or food, and even use tools. In some cases, elephants have been seen using branches to swat flies or employing leaves as makeshift umbrellas.
2. Memory: Elephants have exceptional memories, which enable them to remember individuals, locations, and events. This ability helps them navigate long distances, locate water sources, and maintain complex social relationships.
3. Social structure: Elephants live in intricate social structures, often led by a matriarch, and exhibit strong bonds with family members. They communicate using a variety of vocalizations, body language, and even tactile interactions such as touching or caressing each other with their trunks. Elephants have been known to grieve the loss of family members, exhibiting behaviors that suggest mourning and emotional distress.
4. Empathy and altruism: Elephants show signs of empathy and altruism, offering comfort and assistance to injured or distressed individuals within their group. They have been observed engaging in cooperative behavior, such as working together to protect vulnerable members or achieve a common goal.
5. Self-awareness: Elephants have passed the mirror self-recognition test, an experiment designed to assess self-awareness in animals. When presented with a mirror, elephants, like dolphins and some primates, can recognize their reflection as an image of themselves, demonstrating a level of self-awareness.
6. Imitation and learning: Elephants are capable of learning new behaviors by observing others, as demonstrated by the case of Pang Pha, the Asian elephant that learned to peel bananas by watching her caretakers. Elephants can also learn from each other, as seen in instances where they imitate the behavior of more experienced individuals within their group.
7. Complex vocalizations: Elephants communicate using a wide range of vocalizations, including infrasound (low-frequency sounds that travel long distances), which they use to coordinate group movements, warn others of potential threats, or convey other essential information.

These various forms of evidence, along with other observations of their behavior, demonstrate that elephants are highly intelligent and sentient creatures with complex emotional lives and cognitive abilities. 

By observing and learning from elephant behavior, humans can develop a deeper understanding of social dynamics, empathy, communication, adaptability, and environmental conservation. These insights can help us foster stronger relationships, better problem-solving abilities, and a greater appreciation for the natural world.

—-

Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.