Elephants work together as a team and understand when they need help from a partner. This is the finding of a jumbo-sized experiment.
In the test, two animals had to work together - each pulling on a rope in order to tug a platform towards them. Scientists claim that elephants' understanding of the need to co-operate shows that they belong in an "elite group" of intelligent, socially complex animals. Here's footage of the elephants in action:
Researchers from the University of Cambridge built the apparatus, which was originally designed for chimps. Dr Joshua Plotnik said it was exciting to find a way to study elephant behaviour in such detail: "We see them doing amazing things in the wild, but we can see from this that they're definitely co-operating. When we released one elephant before the other, they quickly learned to wait for their partner before they pulled the rope. They learnt that rule [to wait for the other elephant to arrive] quicker than chimps doing the same task. And one elephant - the youngest in the study - quickly learned that it did not have to do any pulling to get a treat. She could just put her foot on the rope, so her partner had to do all the work."
The Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) had already been taught that pulling on a rope brought a food reward on a platform within reach. However, the research changed the apparatus so that one rope was threaded all the way around a platform - like a belt through belt loops - so if one end was tugged, the rope simply slipped out and the platform did not budge. However, if two elephants each took an end of the rope and pulled, the platform moved towards them and they could could claim their treats.
What we can learn
Dr Plotnik is more aware than most of the complexity of elephant’s behaviour. "As humans, we like to show that we're unique, but we're repeatedly shot down. One thing that remains is our language. But amazingly complex behaviours - culture, tool use, social interaction - we see all of this in the animal kingdom." He hopes that his findings will help with the conservation of these endangered animals: "The more we can understand about their intelligence, the better we can develop solutions to things like human-elephant conflict. So when the animals are raiding crops, we need to think of solutions that are based on the reasons why, and that benefit elephants as well as people."
Tina Dow from US-based Elephant Research International said the findings could also "have positive effects on captive elephants, allowing keepers and mahouts to develop better enrichment tools that can stimulate both mental and physical health". "Elephants are caring, sentient beings," she added.
Amazing wild elephant behaviour
This experiment was conducted using captive elephants at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang province. However, wild elephants living in their natural environments will no doubt cooperate in many complex ways we are not even aware of.
This wonderful footage shows adult elephants working together to help rescue a baby elephant stuck in mud. Clearly they are showing empathy for vulnerable youngster.
I’ll finish with this wonderful film clip showing these highly social animals appearing to mourn their dead. We can only imagine what goes on inside an elephant’s mind. Yet the more we learn, the more we admire them, and the stronger the case for treating them with the compassion and respect they so surely deserve. This means keeping them out of captivity in circuses and zoos and conserving them in their natural habitats in the wild where they truly belong.