An elephant from the Berlin Zoo learnt to peel bananas [VIDEO]

(Lena V. Kaufman et al. / Current Biology, 2023 https://bit.ly/40Xtimk)

A female Asian elephant namedPang Pha from the Berlin Zoo can peel bananas, and she does it faster than a human.

But she does not peel all bananas, only yellow-brown ones, and eats green and yellow with a peel.

In addition, Pha peels bananas most often alone.

Elephants with the help of their trunk not only breathe and sniff, but also eat, drink, take objects and touch them, and also touch their relatives.

The processes at the end of the trunk are compared even with the fingers of primates, and there are several dozen proboscis manipulations.

Various complex movements of the trunk are provided by a large number of neurons in the nucleus of the facial nerve of elephants.

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THE OBSERVATIONS
Now a team led by Lena V. Kaufmann of the Humboldt University observed Pang Pha, a female Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo, peeling bananas with her trunk.

Elephants rarely peel bananas, but nevertheless it happens.

However, not a single elephant from the zoos in Berlin and Vienna was seen doing this.

Pha takes a banana with the tip of its trunk, breaks it by hitting the side of the trunk, then shakes it until the flesh falls out of the peel, picks it up, and leaves the peel on the ground.

She can do this several times, until she has eaten all the pulp.

At first, the researchers thought that Pha peeled bananas occasionally, they could offer her bananas for weeks, but she ate them with the skin on.

But at some point, scientists realized that the elephant does not eat and peel all bananas, she distinguishes them by the degree of ripeness.

Pha often refused brown overripe bananas, green and yellow ones were eaten with a peel.

But she almost always peeled yellow bananas with brown specks: in 82% of cases.

However, when she agreed to brown bananas, she peeled them too.

The researchers also found that Pha peels bananas only when she is fed separately from other elephants.

When scientists offered yellow-brown bananas to a group of elephants at the same time: Pha, her daughter Anchali, and another female Drumbo, Pha ate the bananas whole, but often left the last banana to peel later.

The other two elephants ate bananas with the skins on, and Pha's daughter sometimes finished the skins that her mother had thrown away.

At the same time, the elephants ate very quickly: Pha ate a banana in two seconds.

Maybe she realized that if she took the time to peel while everyone else was eating whole bananas, she wouldn't get the fruit.

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LEARNT BEHAVIOR
The daughter of Pha and 4 other elephants at the Berlin Zoo didn't learn to peel bananas by looking at her.

This may indicate that the skill is not easily transferable, or that Pha usually peels bananas alone, but in the company he eats like everyone else.

Pha was never taught to peel bananas.

However, when she arrived at the zoo in 1987 at a few months old, her guardians fed her peeled bananas, and sometimes peeled them right in front of her.

Therefore, scientists have suggested that Pha herself learned this from people, although there is no evidence for this.

Sources:

• Current Biology: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00266-X
• Eureka Alert: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/985369
• Popular Science: https://www.popsci.com/environment/banana-peel-elephant/

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