Researchers Document Elephant Brainpower

GreenTracker| Imagine putting 100 people behind a far-away wall, then asking the matriarch in charge to identify each person correctly by voice.

Karen McComb, an animal psychologist at the University of Sussex, UK, carried out a sound playback study designed to discover how many other elephants a single elephant might recognise from the sound of their calls.

McComb found that the female elephant in charge can recognize at least 100 other elephants responding to her call.

In Japan, researchers determined that elephants can distinguish complex quantities, perhaps better than humans. Most of us can easily distinguish between one object and two. Comprehending five vs six is much more complex. Yet elephants do just as well distinguishing five from six.

Elephants have an uneasy relationship with the Massai. Read on The truth behind elephant brainpower BBC News

Researchers now detect this unease when the elephants at Ambroseli hear Massai speaking Maa vs English-speaking tourists. Researchers say elephants calm down when they hear Swahili.

Photo: Heaven’s Gate on Flickr

More reading on elephants:

Elephants: A Love and Hate Relationship When Sharing Natural Habitats

More elephant articles