8 August 2025
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) like to take baths. Generally, when there’s not sufficient room for everybody within the pool, the elephants disregarded problem these hogging the water.
Within the wild elephants tub in rivers, lakes and watering holes, lolling within the water and utilizing their trunks to spray their backs. On the Berlin Zoo Asian elephants are supplied with a hose to take a bathe, just like utilizing their trunks.
In 2023 the keepers seen that an aged elephant, Mary age 54, had developed new methods to make use of the hose so that they initiated a yr lengthy examine on elephant instrument use. They filmed Mary’s hose strategies, praised her for utilizing the hose, and gave her further hose time. She reveled within the further consideration.
However the examine prompted jealousy in a youthful elephant, Anchali age 12, who has cherished hoses since she was a child. In her youth she performed with them till they broke so the keepers restricted her hose use and taught her correct dealing with. Now one other elephant was hogging the water and the keepers let her do it. Anchali began to sabotage Mary’s bathe classes.
Anchali had a possible motive, too: Mary was sometimes aggressive towards the youthful elephant, who appeared to retaliate by disrupting the bathe across the identical time as Mary stomped towards her or slapped her along with her trunk. What’s extra, Anchali didn’t kink the hose when different elephants have been spraying themselves, suggesting she was concentrating on Mary particularly.
Watch Mary’s fancy hose strategies and Anchali’s response.
“Hey, don’t hog the water!”
Learn extra in Science Journal: This elephant realized to make use of a hose as a bathe. Then her rival sought revenge, 8 Nov 2024
p.s. Have you learnt that Asian elephants are the final dwelling relative of woolly mammoths? Discover out extra right here.
