A resident of the Berlin Zoo, Pang Pha is a female Asian elephant.
Elephants are highly intelligent creatures. This large animal has mental abilities that are far beyond our current understanding. Recently, a video of a self-taught elephant peeling bananas gave viewers a glimpse of the animals’ wider range of skills.
However, the video, which was included in a recent study, demonstrates that one very unique Asian elephant by the name of Pang Pha learned how to peel bananas on her own while residing at the Berlin Zoo.
She only uses it on yellow-brown bananas, smashing them first before shaking out the pulp and removing the thick peel.
The Asian elephant Pang Pha grabs the pulp with the tip of its trunk to eat it and then discards the peel, according to the study report that was published in the journal Current Biology on April 10. The process of shaking and peeling is continued until there is no or very little pulp inside the peel, and any remains are repeatedly inspected with the trunk tip.
Watch the video here:
The paper claims that Pang Pha only consumes yellow bananas and shuns brown ones. Brown bananas are accepted by Pang Pha, but she typically discards them after a quick inspection.
“We discovered a very unique behavior,” said Michael Brecht of Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin’s Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in a statement released by Cell Press.
“What makes Pang Pha’s banana peeling so unique is a combination of factors skillfulness, speed, individuality, and the putatively human origin rather than a single behavioral element.”
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