Watch: Elephants filmed ‘pranking each other’

Asian elephant Mary was washing herself when her cheeky friend Anchali attempted to cause chaos at Berlin Zoo

Elephants prank each other with harmless acts of sabotage, scientists have discovered, after two of the animals were caught playing with a water hose.
The mammals are well-known for their ability to use their dextrous trunk for a range of purposes, including washing themselves, moving trees and even stealing pieces of clothing.
But when one Asian elephant at Berlin Zoo called Mary was seen using her trunk to manipulate a hosepipe to wash herself, her mischievous friend Anchali, who she shares an enclosure with, was seen clamping down on the pipe with her trunk to stop the water flow.
The elephants are trained to not stand on the hose pipe with their feet because it interferes with the work of the keepers, so Anchali found innovative trunk-based methods to get around the rules.
Researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin have written a study on how Mary washes herself with a hose, including using it as a lasso in order to clean hard to reach places on her back.
The scientists say Mary may be adept at using the bendy hose pipe because it has similar long and floppy properties to her trunk. The authors also studied the “unexpected bonus” of Anchali’s “sabotage”.
Both animals showed goal-directed behaviour using tools, the scientists say, a skill once thought to be unique to humans but which has recently been observed in other species such as chimps, crows and dolphins.
Lena Kaufmann, of Humboldt University, who filmed Mary, said: “Elephants spray themselves with water, mud or dust all the time, and it’s been shown before that over 80 per cent of observed tool-use behaviours in elephants are actually body care-related.”
But she said Mary using a water hose is special because it is an “exceptionally complex tool” that has flexibility, can extend in length, and has water flowing through it.
Ms Kaufmann said: “Mary’s very skilful behaviour with this water hose made us think that maybe elephants have a somewhat intuitive understanding of hoses, potentially due to the similarities with their own trunks.”
The researchers said both elephants were interacting aggressively during showering time, with Anchali pulling the hose towards herself and twisting it.
Michael Brecht, a professor at Humboldt University, said: “The surprise was certainly Anchali’s kink-and-clamp behaviour. Nobody had thought that she’d be smart enough to pull off such a trick.”
Anchali was seen performing a “trunkstand” where she places her trunk on the hose and then lowers her massive body onto it to slow water flow.
Prof Brecht said: “When Anchali came up with a second behaviour that disrupted water flow to Mary, I became pretty convinced that she was trying to sabotage Mary.”
The researchers also found Mary was able to adapt her technique based on the type of hose.
Prof Brecht said: “Elephants are amazing with hoses. As it is often the case with elephants, hose tool use behaviours come out very differently from animal to animal; elephant Mary is the queen of showering.”
The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, also raises questions about whether elephants behave similarly in the wild.
Prof Brecht said: “Do elephants play tricks on each other in the wild? When I saw Anchali’s kink and clamp for the first time, I broke out in laughter.
“So I wonder, does Anchali also think this is funny, or is she just being mean?”