Footage of an oversized experiment has revealed that elephants understand when they need help from a partner. In the test, two animals had to work together - each pulling on a rope in order to tug a platform towards them.
Elephants' apparent grasp of the need to co-operate shows, scientists say, that they belong in an "elite group" of intelligent, socially complex animals. Researchers from the University of Cambridge built the apparatus, which was originally designed for chimps.
YouTube link.
The team published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study leader Dr Joshua Plotnik from the University of Cambridge said it was exciting to find a way to study elephant behaviour in such detail.
"It's so hard to work with elephants because of their size," he said. "We see them doing amazing things in the wild, but we can see from this that they're definitely co-operating."
1 comment:
That's pretty exceptional.
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