Wild Asian Elephants Display Intelligence by Solving Puzzles To Gain Food Access

A new study presents data on how wild Asian elephants solve puzzles that unlock storage boxes with food.

Sarah Jacobson, a psychology doctoral candidate studying animal cognition at the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College and the lead author of the study, underscored that this is the first research that shows that individual wild elephants have different willingness and abilities to solve the given problem in order to get food.

The research published in the journal Animal Behavior details the findings in a six-month-long documentation of the behavior of the animals.

"This is important knowledge, because how animals think and innovate may influence their ability to survive in environments that are rapidly changing due to human presence," she added.

Monitored behavior of the elephant

Asian elephants, also known as Elephas maximus, have previously exhibited a propensity for innovation in zoos, but problem solving in a wild elephant population has never been investigated experimentally.

The researchers utilized motion-activated cameras to observe 77 wild Asian elephants as they approached and determined whether to open puzzle boxes with three differently constructed compartments containing extremely aromatic jackfruit.

The jackfruit could be accessible by pulling on a chain so that the door opened toward the elephant, pushing the door so that it swung open into the box, or sliding the door open to the right, depending on the compartment with which the elephant engaged.

The elephants had to engage with the puzzle boxes on their own to figure out how to open the compartments.

44 of the elephants who approached the puzzle boxes interacted with them over time, but there were disparities in how inventive the elephants were.

The elephants who interacted with the puzzle boxes more frequently and persistently were more successful in extracting food from all three differently constructed compartments.

Eleven elephants solved one compartment type, and eight elephants solved two compartment types. Five elephants solved all three types, making them the most inventive.

Conservation efforts

Experts stressed the importance of the study in conservation efforts for wild elephants.

Dr. Joshua Plotnik, a psychology professor and study's principal investigator, said human-elephant conflict is on the rise as a result of habitat degradation and agricultural encroachment on what is left of it.

"Investigating innovation and problem solving in elephants can inform our understanding of wild elephant cognitive flexibility and its potential impact on conservation management and human-elephant conflict mitigation," he added.

All data were gathered at the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Thailand (hence referred to as 'Salakpra'). Salakpra is part of the Western Forest Complex in western Thailand, which is a priority region for elephant conservation and a biodiversity hotspot.

The sanctuary is an 860-kilometer-long protected region that is not open to public tourists.

In a study last March, experts found that bumblebee insects may actually learn to solve puzzles from one another, implying that even invertebrates like these social insects have the capacity for what we humans call "culture."

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