A pair of elephants at the Berlin Zoo have figured out how to use a hose as a make-shift flexible shower head. Not only do they use the water to get clean, but they have been observed turning the water off, potentially as a kind of prank. The behaviors are yet further examples of tool use in non-human animals and are detailed in a study published November 8 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.
Tool use known throughout the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees use sticks as tools to get to various grubs and honey. Crows also use sticks to probe for hidden sources of food. Humpback whales catch fish in “bubble nets,” which some scientists consider to be a type of tool use. Now, it appears that some elephants at the Berlin Zoo in Germany like to use hoses–particularly an Asian elephant named Mary.
A video abstract for the 2024 Current Biology paper on elephant water hose tool use.CREDIT: Urban et al./Current Biology
VIDEO: A video abstract for the 2024 Current Biology paper on elephant water hose tool use.CREDIT: Urban et al./Current Biology
“Elephants are amazing with hoses,” Michael Brecht, a study co-author and Humboldt University of Berlin neuroscientist said in a statement. “As it is often the case with elephants, hose tool use behaviors come out very differently from animal to animal; elephant Mary is the queen of showering.”
Study co-author and Humboldt University of Berlin PhD student Lena Kaufmann witnessed Mary using the hose as a shower and captured some footage. The team was immediately impressed with this behavior and co-author Lea Urban decided to analyze it in more detail.
“I had not thought about hoses as tools much before, but what came out from Lea’s work is that elephants have an exquisite understanding of these tools,” Brecht says.
[Related: Neanderthals likely used glue to make tools.]
They found that Mary systematically showers her body. She coordinates the water hose using her limbs. She typically uses her trunk to grasp the hose behind its tip to use it as a stiff shower head. In order to get to her back, she uses a more lasso-like strategy. She grabs the hose farther up and swings it over her body. When she was presented with a larger and heavier hose, Mary used her trunk to wash instead of the more bulky and less useful hose.
According to the team, these behaviors offer a new example of goal-directed tool use in animals. However, what surprised them most was how a fellow Asian elephant named Anchali reacted during Mary’s showering.
Both elephants showed aggressive interactions around showering time. At one point, Anchali began pulling the hose towards himself and away from Mary. This lifted and kinked the hose and disrupted the water flow. While the team is not entirely sure of Anchali’s intentions behind this, it appeared that she was displaying some kind of second tool use behavior, possibly as an act of sabotage.
An on hose ‘trunkstand’ further disrupts the water flow in the hose. CREDIT: Urban et al-Current Biology
VIDEO: An on hose ‘trunkstand’ further disrupts the water flow in the hose. CREDIT: Urban et al-Current Biology
“The surprise was certainly Anchali’s kink-and-clamp behavior,” Brecht says. “Nobody had thought that she’d be smart enough to pull off such a trick.”
According to Brecht, there was plenty of debate in the lab about Anchali’s behavior and what it could mean. Then, the team observed Anchali find another way to disrupt Mary’s shower. In this second case, she did what the researchers call a “trunkstand” to stop the water flow. Anchali placed her trunk on the hose and then lowered her body onto it.
Anchali’s Kink and clamp behavior. The authors of this study were very surprised by this behavior. CREDIT: Urban et al-Current Biology
VIDEO: Anchali’s Kink and clamp behavior. The authors of this study were very surprised by this behavior. CREDIT: Urban et al-Current Biology
The elephants are trained not to step on the hoses and very rarely do. The team suspects that’s why Anchali devised a more challenging workaround to stop the water from flowing during Mary’s showers without stepping on it.
“When Anchali came up with a second behavior that disrupted water flow to Mary, I became pretty convinced that she is trying to sabotage Mary,” Brecht said.
[Related: Female sea otters use tools more than males.]
According to the team, the results are a reminder of how well elephants can manipulate and use tools. This is made possible by the strong grasping ability of their trunks. These appendages contain an estimated 150,000 muscle units and could be the most sensitive organ found on mammals. The team hopes to explore what this finding with captive elephants means for elephants in their natural habitats.
“Do elephants play tricks on each other in the wild?” Brecht asked. “When I saw Anchali’s kink and clamp for the first time, I broke out in laughter. So, I wonder, does Anchali also think this is funny, or is she just being mean?”
