Elephant see , elephant do , it seems . In a new newspaper this week , research worker describe an Asian elephant that has discover how to peel a banana tree before feed it . The pachyderm , named Pang Pha , in all probability adopt the deception from watching humans but appears to only flake off certain banana tree .
Pang Pha is a distaff Asiatic elephant and occupier at the Berlin Zoo . Zookeepers there alerted scientist at the Humboldt University of Berlin and elsewhere about Pang Pha ’s peeling trick , so the researchers decided to occur find it for themselves . When they feed her fully icteric or unripened bananas , Pang Pha ate them whole — a normal elephant behavior — and she completely eschew eating brown bananas . But , upon being given yellow bananas with brown spots , she became a peeling motorcar . With her body , she breaks the banana tree , stir out the pulp , and then discards the peel .
“ We discovered a very unique behavior , ” say Michael Brecht of the Humboldt University of Berlin in astatementreleased by Cell Press . “ What makes Pang Pha ’s banana peeling so unequalled is a combining of factors — skillfulness , f number , individuality , and the putatively human origin — rather than a single behavioral constituent . ”
Photo: Various images (Shutterstock)
Pang Pha appears to have picked up the behaviour by note her caretakers , who lift her by helping hand and would regularly feed her peeled bananas . But banana tree - desquamation seems to be a rare acquisition in the elephant worldly concern , and no other elephants at the Berlin Zoo have adopted it . Pang Pha also seems to be unsure about display her peeling : When exhaust bananas in a radical , she ’ll bolt most of them whole , while saving one to peel and corrode on her own later . Not only can Pang Pha skin bananas , she does it faster than humans , according to the researcher .
The team ’s research waspublishedMonday in the journal Current Biology . A YouTube television showing off Pang Pha ’s pare prowess can beseen here .
The findings are the late to point that elephants have some truly telling cognitive abilities . Just last week , a separate team of scientistsarguedthat elephant may be the only non - primate beast that could be considered “ ego - domesticated , ” meaning they ’ve evolved on their own to present reduced hostility and strong social bonding behavior .
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