By Tim Binnall
An elephant in Germany has amazed animal behavior experts by developing the unusual ability to peel bananas using her trunk. Dubbed Pang Pha, the pachyderm had previously delighted her handlers at the Berlin Zoo when demonstrating the weird skill and word soon spread to scientists who reportedly became eager to study the massive creature's remarkable dexterity. After initial attempts to get the Asian elephant to replicate the 'trick' for them came up short, the researchers started to suspect that it was a tall tale until they brought the animal a particularly ripe banana and Pang Pha sprung into action, manipulating the fruit in such a way that she could peel it with her trunk.
"It was only when we understood that she peels only yellow-brown bananas that our project took off," recalled researcher Michael Brecht, who theorized that this discernment may be because that specific type of fruit is easier to manipulate or simply that "the brown peel might taste disgusting." Although such a skill has occasionally been seen before from elephants, what makes Pang Pha's ability especially intriguing to scientists is that they believe that the pachyderm picked up the trick from watching her handler peel bananas. "He thought it was stupid that they that they always eat the whole banana and he peeled the bananas always for her," Brecht explained, "that's where we think it started."
To that end, they note that Pang Pha is the only elephant at the Berlin Zoo that has demonstrated the odd peeling ability and, so far, none of its other fellow pachyderms have picked up on the trick despite seeing her perform it multiple times. That said, not everyone is convinced that the creature is demonstrating observational learning as some skeptical scientists have suggested that the animal's actions are merely the result of a taste preference and not something she was inadvertently taught over the course of her life residing at the zoo. As one might imagine, the scientists who studied Pang Pha are keen to continue observing the creature in the hopes that it might somehow give up the secret.