An Indian elephant kept at a zoo will learn to peel a banana without being warned by a trainer. The case description was published in Current Biology.
Elephants love to eat bananas and eat them with their skins. Unlike monkeys, they do not have dexterous hands that allow them to peel the fruit, according to objective indicators, the peel is much less tasty and nutritious than meat.
Keepers at the Berlin Zoo discovered that a female Indian elephant named Pang Pha was able to peel a banana without anyone teaching her (at least without zoo staff). That is, he first breaks a banana with the help of a stem, then slowly shakes the flesh from the peel with rotational movements. The elephant may have learned this by watching humans peel bananas, according to the article’s authors. At the same time, in his case, he could not repeat the action of the keepers due to too many differences in anatomy, instead the animal developed its own method, which once again confirmed the existence of enhanced intelligence in elephants.
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