The elephant sees, the elephant does, it seems. In a new paper this week, the researchers describe Asian The elephant who learned how to peel a banana before eating it. The pachyderm, called Pang Pha, likely adopted the trick from watching humans but only seems to exfoliate a bit. banana.
Pang Pha is a female Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo. Park rangers there alerted sScientists at the Humboldt University in Berlin And in other places about Pang Pha’s exfoliating trick, so the researchers decided to witness it themselves. wWhen they fed it whole yellow or green bananas, Bang Fa ate it whole – which is normal elephant behavior –And I avoided brown bananas altogether. but on Yellow bananas with brown spots are given, became a peeling machine. With its stem, she breaks the banana, shakes out the pulp, and then discards the peel.
Michael Brecht of the Humboldt University of Berlin said in a statement statement Published by Cell Press. “What makes Pang Pha banana peeling so unique is a combination of factors—skill, speed, individuality, and presumed human origin—rather than a single behavioral component.”
Bang Fa seems to have it Capture the behavior Observing her caretakers, who raised her by hand and regularly fed her peeled bananas. But peeling bananas appears to be a rare skill in the elephant world, and no other elephants at Berlin Zoo have adopted it. Pang Pha also seems to be shy about showing off its peel: WA hen eating bananas in a group will gobble most of them whole, while saving one to peel and eat on her own later. According to the researchers, not only can Pang Pha peel bananas, but they do it faster than humans.
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The team was researched published Monday in Current Biology. a A YouTube video showing Pang Pha’s exfoliating prowess Maybe I saw here.
The findings are the latest to suggest that elephants have some really impressive cognitive abilities. Just last week, a separate team of scientists argue Elephants may be the only non-primate animals that can be considered “self-domesticated,” meaning they evolved on their own. to Show low aggressiveness and strong social bonding behaviors.