Blog

Take a look around the zoo and you might spot animals using tools to make their lives easier. Otters use stones to crack into shells, and chimpanzees use sticks to fish up termites. But it’s not just about food. Last week, scientists wrote about a whole new example of tool-use in elephants … and one elephant may be capable of pulling a tool-based prank.

Meet Mary and Anchali, two female Asian elephants living at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. They have both learned how to use a hose and according to the research team, “Mary is the queen of showering.” Mary uses her trunk to hold the hose like a shower head to spray most of her body with precision. Then, she switches to a lasso-like grip to swing the water over her hard-to-reach backend.

Mary’s showers are a new example of tool-use that has a clear goal: get clean. But the real surprise came when Anchali entered the room. See, these elephants live together but they often act like frenemies, especially during shower time!

The researchers watched Anchali try to steal the hose from Mary while she showered. When that didn’t work, Anchali stopped the flow by using her trunk to kink the hose!

“The surprise was certainly Anchali’s kink-and-clamp behaviour,” says zoologist Michael Brecht. “Nobody had thought that she’d be smart enough to pull off such a trick.”

Why didn’t Anchali just step on the hose? Well, the zookeepers have trained them not to. So, Anchali had to think of another way to stop the water instead. While it’s hard to know if Anchali’s true goal is to “prank” Mary, her kink-and-clamp behaviour shows that she knows how a hose works.

“Do elephants play tricks on each other in the wild?” asks Michael. “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?”