Elephants love to eat bananas, but they usually don’t peel them first like humans do. Despite this, a particularly smart elephant living in a zoo in Berlin was recently observed peeling her bananas before eating, after learning this from her human handlers, according to a new study published last night in “Science daily”.
The female elephant, named Fang Feh, apparently learned the unusual peeling behavior from watching her handlers peel bananas for her, the study authors report. The findings show that elephants have special cognitive and manipulative abilities, they say.
In the footage released by the study’s authors, Fang is seen ripping the banana in half with the tip of her stem and shaking the fruit until the fleshy interior slides out. She collects the sweet pulp with the stalk and leaves the thick skin behind.
“We discovered a very unique behavior,” said Michael Brecht of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. “What makes Fang’s banana peeling so unique is a combination of factors—skill, speed, individuality, and the apparent human origin—rather than a single behavioral component.”
Brecht and his colleagues, including Lena Kaufmann, also at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Andreas Ochs, Berlin Zoological Garden, made the discovery after learning from Fang’s handlers about her unusual talent for peeling bananas.
According to them, at first they were confused. They brought Pang nice yellow and green bananas, and she never peeled them. “It wasn’t until we realized that she only peels yellow-brown bananas that our project took off,” said Brecht.
The authors of the study noted that Fang saves the peel only for ripe yellow bananas with brown spots. According to them, like other elephants, Fang eats whole green or yellow bananas. She rejects brown bananas outright. But when it comes to yellow bananas with brown spots – the kind you can reserve for banana bread – she eats after peeling first.
Eventually, the researchers realized that she would only peel bananas at the right level of ripeness, and she seemed to particularly prefer the yellow-brown ones. This is probably because ripe bananas are much easier to slide out of their skins, although there are other possible explanations as well. “The other thing we thought about is that the brown shell might be disgusting.”
The researchers also found that her behavior changed when she had to compete with other elephants for bananas. When Fang Paa ate in batches, she downed whole bananas as fast as she could—one every two seconds, the scientists calculated—saving only the last to peel later. “If she has time, she obviously prefers the peeled banana,” Brecht said.
Banana peeling is rare in elephants as far as is known, and it is not clear why Fang peels them. The researchers note that she was hand-raised by humane handlers at the Berlin Zoo. They never taught her to peel bananas, but they did feed her peeled bananas. Based on this, the researchers suggest that she acquired the peeling skill through observational learning from humans.
Researchers believe her behavior may stem from unusual childhood experiences. When she arrived at the Berlin Zoo, she was hand-raised by a dedicated keeper, who deviated from the typical practice of handing out whole, unpeeled bananas. “He thought it was silly that they always ate the whole banana, and he always peeled the bananas for her,” Brecht said. “That’s where we think it started.”
This early experience not only gave Fang a chance to observe banana peeling, but may have helped her develop a preference for the taste of peeled bananas, which the other elephants do not share. None of the other elephants at the zoo were seen peeling their fruit, despite the fact that several of them watched Fang do it repeatedly.
Fang’s daughter, Anchali, skips the peeling step, although she sometimes enjoys Fang’s commission fruit. “Often Fang Fe would peel the banana and her daughter would eat the peel,” said Dr. Brecht.
Previous reports on African elephants suggest that elephants can interpret human pointing gestures and classify people into ethnic groups, but complex manipulative behaviors of human origin, such as peeling a banana, appear to be quite unique, according to the researchers. Fang’s findings indicate that elephants have surprising cognitive abilities and impressive manipulative skill. “Elephants have extraordinary hunting skills and their behavior is shaped by experience,” says Brecht.
The researchers found it surprising that Fang alone picked up on the banana peel. This leads them to wonder if such habits are commonly passed down through elephant families. They are now testing other sophisticated behaviors of the trunk, such as using tools.