KandulaFlickr CC: princessrica

For the first time, zoologists have captured elephants experiencing what they have termed the "Eureka" moment, proving that these mammals are capable of insightful problem solving.

The project, which brought together zoologists from New York and Washington, saw three Asian elephants studied as they were given certain tasks to complete that required problem solving.

The two adult females, a 33-year-old and a 61-year-old, and a 7-year-old juvenile male, Kandula, reside at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Washington, DC. They were first given bamboo sticks to see if they would use these as tools to obtain fruit placed out of reach on the opposite side of the bars of their indoor enclosure. While the scientists did observe the elephants manipulating the sticks like tools, they did not use them to try and reach the sticks.

The team queried whether the elephants' failure was as a result of their "lack of problem solving ability, or rather that the bars were impeding the elephants' performance or that the tasks were not ecologically valid". They decided to create a new task for which a branch baited with food was hung out of "trunk reach" but a box strong enough to the elephant to stand on was placed within the enclosure. Each elephant was individually tested over a couple of days and the video below shows the moment that Kandula, having already used the cube once to reach the food, did it again -- this time dragging the cube from out of frame to set it beneath the branch.  

Kandula had been trained to stand on the box for play but the scientists argue that this was only one component of the problem-solving task. They write: "…the sequence of behaviour exhibited by Kandula, moving the cube and standing on it to reach food, constitutes a more complex series of events that cannot be accounted for by past training."

The team also says that previous studies may have failed to excite the "Eureka" moment because they treated the elephant's trunk as "a grasping appendage analogous to a primate hand". They explain that although the trunk can be manipulated "…in food foraging its function as a sensory organ may take precedence"; but "when a stick is held in the trunk, the tip is curled backwards and may be closed, prohibiting olfactory and tactile feedback".

But, when given the right tools, they claim that elephants, like humans and several other species, can demonstrate "aha" moments.


  1. Try attaching those implants that give an elephant access to robotic arms. Within 20 generations of a colony or few in communication with humans we could have a new race living alongside us. Who best but the Indians to carry out this endeavour?Meanwhile the worst of the Mahouts should immediately be sent to interspecies relations classes, their actions in some cases are particularly inhumane and would result in Pachyderm inspired lawsuits for 1000s of years of slavery and demands for reparations no end. Africa has not yet finished with the former colonial masters, so Indians, treat the elephant with dignity and respect, give them space to be elephants because what the worst of India did to elephants may come back to haunt India someday when the first elephant claims semi-deity status with Ganesh as the patron God of elephant kind !Next to address, chickens - what evolutionary efforts could be made, would they want to fry humans if given the chance . . . learn to grow lab based meat or even all sorts of food, there looks to be a terrible dilemna about to beset humanity's eating habits . . .  

    Aug 24th 2011

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