A Breath of Fresh Air (and Food!) for the Asian Elephant

As humans, we all know that we will do anything for food and luckily, we have two hands with opposable thumbs to reach our nutritional goals. However, most members of the Kingdom Animalia have become skilled with sticks, rocks, and other items to get hard-to-reach food. The Asian elephant, though, needs no such secondary aid – they already have their trunks! This was first observed by famed biologist, Charles Darwin, in 1874 (Mizuno, Irie, Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, & Kutsekake, 2016). Animal researchers Mizuno, Irie, Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, and Kutsekake (2016) observed how Asian elephants acquire inaccessible food by blowing air from their trunks and thus demonstrate a working knowledge of physics and movement.

Mizuno and colleagues (2016) observed two elephants in captivity attempting to obtain food from hard-to-reach locations. They placed food in inaccessible parts of the elephant’s space in order to determine whether or not blowing air through the trunk was evidence of elephant goal-directed behaviour. In other words, if the elephant blew more frequently, the elephant showed intention to obtain the delicious snack (Mizuno, Irie, Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, & Kutsekake, 2016). Using bamboo shoots, apples, potatoes, hay, and leaves to tempt the elephants, the researchers observed Mineko and Suzuko, two female Asian elephants, over the course of 32 days. Both elephants would direct air from their trunks towards the food in an attempt to bring it closer to grasp it with their trunk. Both elephants were persistent in their blowing behaviour which provided evidence for their goal-directed behaviour. While there were differences in how long it took for each food item to be made accessible by blowing, the researchers thought this might be due to the difference in weight (apples, potatoes, and bamboo shoots).

Why is this important for us to know? This research shows that many animals aside from humans are highly intelligent and demonstrate the capacity for making and following through with goals and ambitions. Furthermore, because the two elephants are not using a tool like a stick or rock, they exhibit the sophisticated ability to understand the basic nature of air and physics. However, each elephant actually used slightly different blowing techniques and when the food item became accessible, the elephants showed were subtly different in determining when the food was easy to reach with their trunk or mouth. The use of air points to advanced cognitive skills among elephants, leaving us to answer many more questions about what they can achieve.

Reference(s):

Mizuno, K., Irie, N., Hiraiwi-Hasegawa, M., & Kutsekake, N. (2016). Asian elephants acquire inaccessible food by blowing. Animal Cognition, 19, 215-222. doi: 10.1007/s10071-015-0929-2