Elephants having fun with hoses: Showering and pranking each other

Elephants are masters of using hoses. A hose is considered a complex tool because of its flexibility, length, and the physical properties of the flowing water.

Researchers studying three Asian elephants (maximum elephas) The animals at the Berlin Zoo were amazed to see how agile they were with the hose and how to take a shower, and they seemed to understand how to get the most out of it. They appeared to be playing pranks on each other mid-shower by twisting the hose and squeezing it with their torsos to stop the flow.

To reach more distant parts of the body, elephants used a lasso-like technique, holding the hose far from the end and swinging it over their backs.

michael brecht The researchers at Humboldt University in Berlin said the elephants' behavior around the hose reminded them of children playing together.

“Elephants are very good at handling hoses, and we really wonder if this has something to do with the functional similarities between their trunks and hoses,” he says.

Just as humans are either left-handed or right-handed, African and Asian elephants are either left-handed or right-handed “trunkers,” preferring to bend their trunks in one direction. Researchers also noticed that elephants have a side preference when manipulating hoses. One of the elephants, named Mary, used her trunk to shower on the right side of her body, but used the hose more on the left side.

Another elephant named Anchali performed five different actions to block the flow of water when Mary tried to take a shower: positioning the hose, lifting it, twisting it, re-grabbing the twist, and compressing it. Showed.

“This sabotage-like behavior, if it's true at all, is only seen in a small number of animals,” Brecht said.

Brecht's previous research suggests that elephant trunks are one of the most sensitive body parts in the animal kingdom, allowing elephants to handle objects with a precision similar to that of human hands.

“This study reiterates the idea that elephants exhibit very sophisticated trunk behavior,” he says.