If you’re getting frustrated by the shower pig in your home, you’re not alone: research suggests that such behavior can even annoy elephants.
Scientists say they have not only discovered an elephant with an astonishing ability to shower with a hose, but have seen another cut off the flow of water – possibly in a deliberate act of sabotage.
Dr Michael Brecht, a co-author of the study from the Humboldt University of Berlin, said: “I actually had a smile on my face all day because I thought it was so funny.”
Myriad animals of chimpanzees on crows use tools, with elephants also adept at such behaviour. “It’s basically in the context of body care, so [elephants] grab palm fronds and use them as fly swatters or things like that,” said Brecht.
The study examines elephants’ use of a water hose, revealing how one Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo, named Mary, used her trunk to lift a hose and swing it like a showerhead – while lifting her hind legs to flush while she was at it. She also grabbed the snake further back, swinging it like a lasso, to spray her back.
Brecht said one possible explanation is that a snake has similarities to a trunk — an appendage that elephants also use to inject themselves. But he said it was unclear how Mary acquired her sophisticated snake skills, noting that none of the other four elephants at the zoo had similar abilities.
Write in the journal Current Biologythe team said that Mary tended to dump the right side of her body when using her skirt but her left when using the hose, and noted that her choice to use the hose varied with its diameter – possibly because a smaller diameter made it more difficult to handle.
But Mary’s extended shower time caused some contention. She became defensive of the snake and aggressive towards a younger female, Anchali, sometimes striking the latter with her trunk.
However, Anchali was not a mere bystander: while all the elephants were trained not to step on snakes, the team found that Anchali used her trunk to kink and squeeze the snake, interrupting the flow of water .
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To investigate whether this disruption of Mary’s showers was intentional, the researchers repeatedly gave Anchali two snakes, only one of which went to Mary. The results were inconclusive, with Anchali often choosing the snake that was closest, but the team say they suspect the disruption may be a deliberate act of sabotage, noting that Anchali’s manipulation of the snake was complex and more so over time. became effective.
“The thing that did it for me, despite the ambiguous control experiments, was when she came up with these other really funny behaviors that we’ve never seen in an elephant,” Brecht said. Anchali was seen performing a sort of headstand on the snake with her trunk, again blocking the water.
However, whether Anchali acted in good humor remains unclear.
“That’s something we really want to know – does she think it’s funny?” said Brecht. “I think it’s very funny, but we really don’t know. Maybe she’s just trying to be mean.”
