Elephant cognition is the study of animal cognition as present in elephants. Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass of just over 5 kg (11 lb), an elephant's brain has more mass than that of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty times those of a typical elephant, a whale's brain is barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. In addition, elephants have around 257 billion neurons. Elephant brains are similar to humans' and many other mammals' in terms of general connectivity and functional areas, with several unique structural differences. Although initially estimated to have as many neurons as a human brain, the elephant's cortex has about one-third of the number of neurons as a human brain.
Elephants manifest a wide variety of
behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, mimicry, play, altruism,
use of tools, compassion, cooperation,
self-awareness, memory, and communication.
Further, evidence suggests elephants may understand pointing: the
ability to nonverbally communicate an object by extending a finger, or
equivalent. It is thought they are equal
with cetaceans and primates in this regard. Due to such claims of high
intelligence and due to strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue
it is morally wrong for humans to cull them.
Aristotle described the elephant as "the animal that surpasses all
others in wit and mind."
Elephant Society
The elephant has one of the most closely
knit societies of any living species. Elephant families can only be separated
by death or capture. Cynthia Moss, an ethologist
specializing in elephants, recalls an event involving a family of African
elephants.
Two members of the family were shot by
poachers, who were subsequently chased off by the remaining elephants. Although
one of the elephants died, the other, named Tina, remained standing, but with
knees beginning to give way. Two family members, Trista and Teresia (Tina's
mother), walked to both sides of Tina and leaned in to hold her up. Eventually,
Tina grew so weak, she fell to the ground and died. However, Trista and Teresia
did not give up but continually tried to lift her. They managed to get Tina into
a sitting position, but her body was lifeless and fell to the ground again. As
the other elephant family members became more intensely involved in the aid,
they tried to put grass into Tina's mouth. Teresia then put her tusks beneath
Tina's head and front quarters and proceeded to lift her. As she did so, her
right tusk broke completely off, right up to the lip and nerve cavity. The
elephants gave up trying to lift Tina but did not leave her; instead, they
began to bury her in a shallow grave and throw leaves over her body. They stood
over Tina for the night and then began to leave in the morning. The last to
leave was Teresia.
Because elephants are so closely knit and
highly matriarchal, a family can be devastated by the death of another
(especially a matriarch), and some groups never recover their organization.
Cynthia Moss has observed a mother, after the death of her calf, walk
sluggishly at the back of a family for many days.
Edward Topsell stated in his
publication The History of Four-Footed Beasts in 1658,
"There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so
great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the
elephant." Elephants are believed
to be on par with chimpanzees with regard to their cooperative skills.
Elephant Altruism
Elephants are thought to be highly altruistic
animals that even aid other species, including humans, in distress. In India,
an elephant was helping locals lift logs by following a truck and placing the
logs in pre-dug holes upon instruction from the mahout (elephant trainer). At a
certain hole, the elephant refused to lower the log. The mahout came to
investigate the hold-up and noticed a dog sleeping in the hole. The elephant
only lowered the log when the dog was gone.
When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (even if they are unrelated)
aid them.
Cynthia Moss has often seen elephants
going out of their way to avoid hurting or killing a human, even when it was
difficult for them (such as having to walk backwards to avoid a person). Joyce Poole documented an encounter told to
her by Colin Francombe on Kuki Gallman's Laikipia Ranch. A ranch herder was out
on his own with camels when he came across a family of elephants. The matriarch
charged at him and knocked him over with her trunk, breaking one of his legs.
In the evening, when he did not return, a search party was sent in a truck to
find him. When the party discovered him, he was being guarded by an elephant.
The animal charged the truck, so they shot over her and scared her away. The
herdsman later told them that when he could not stand up, the elephant used her
trunk to lift him under the shade of a tree. She guarded him for the day and
would gently touch him with her trunk.
Elephant Mimicry
Recent studies have shown that elephants
can also mimicsounds they hear. The discovery was found when Mlaika, an
orphaned elephant, would copy the sound of trucks passing by. So far, the only
other animals that are thought to mimic sounds are whales, dolphins, bats, primates
and birds. Calimero, an African elephant
who was 23 years old, also exhibited a unique form of mimicry. He was in a
Swiss zoo with some Asian elephants. Asian elephants use chirps that are different
from African elephants' deep rumbling noises. Calimero also began to chirp and
not make the deep calls that his species normally would.
Kosik, an Indian elephant at Everland Amusement
Park, South Korea can imitate up to five Korean words, including sit, no, yes
and lie down. Kosik produces
these human-like sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and then shaking it
while breathing out, similar to how people whistle with their fingers.
Ecologist O’Connell-Rodwell’s conducted
research in 1997 which concluded that elephants create low-frequency vibrations
(seismic signals) through their trunks and feet to communicate across long
distances. Elephants use contact calls
to stay in touch with one another when they are out of one another's sight. In
2004, Joseph Soltis conducted a study to understand the low-frequency
vocalization elephants used to communicate across short-distances. The research
found that closely allied female elephants were more likely to produce
‘rumbles’ to other members at twice the rate of those who had lesser integrated
members. Female elephants are able to
remember and distinguish the contact calls of female family and bond group
members from those of females outside of their extended family network. They
can also distinguish between the calls of family units depending upon how
frequently they came across them.
Joyce Poole, of the Amboseli Elephant
Research Project, Kenya, has demonstrated vocal learning and imitation in
elephants of sounds made by each other and in the environment. She is beginning
to research whether sounds made by elephants have dialects, a trait that is
rare in the animal kingdom.
Use of Tools
Elephants show a remarkable ability to
use tools, using their trunks like arms. Elephants have been observed digging
holes to drink water and then ripping bark from a tree, chewing it into the
shape of a ball, filling in the hole and covering over it with sand to avoid evaporation,
then later going back to the spot for a drink. They also often use branches to
swat flies or scratch themselves. Asian
Elephants have also been known to drop large rocks onto an electric fence to
break the fence or to cut off the electricity.
Asian elephants in India have been known to break electric fences using
logs and clear the surrounding wires using their tusks to provide a safe
passageway.
No comments:
Post a Comment