Elephant known as “queen of showering” uses hose to rinse off

Watch as a smart Asian elephant named Mary uses a hose to take a shower - gripping the pipe with her trunk.

Transcript

00:00We studied waterhose tool use, manipulation and showering behaviors in Asian elephants

00:21at the zoo in Berlin.

00:22The female elephant Mary displayed sophisticated hose showering behaviors.

00:27She showed lateralized hose handling and preferred to shower her right side with the

00:30hose.

00:31When showering sides and front, Mary usually grasped the hose behind the tip using it as

00:35a stiff shower head.

00:37She very systematically showered her body and coordinated the trunk-held waterhose

00:41with limb behaviors.

00:43To reach her back, she grasped the hose further from the tip and swung it on her back like

00:46a lasso, using hose flexibility and ballistics.

00:50Another interesting behavior we observed came from a bystander elephant Anjali.

00:56Now what Anjali was doing is she was kinking and clamping Mary's showering hose.

01:02And not only that, she also did another behavior where she did an on-hose trunk stand on the

01:09showering hose of Mary.

01:11Both of these behaviors disrupted water flow to Mary and what we wonder is if Anjali was

01:18trying to sabotage Mary's showering behavior.