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October 25, 2007
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Elephants tell human friends from foes, study finds
Oct. 18, 2007
Courtesy Current Biology
and World Science staff
Elephants are remarkably perceptive in
telling apart human ethnic groups that vary in the degree of danger they’re likely to pose, a study has found.
Elephants in Kenya reacted more fearfully to the scent of garments previously worn by Maasai warriors than
those worn by
Kamba men, the researchers reported. Maasai warriors, they explained,
are known to demonstrate their virility by spearing elephants, while
Kamba agriculturalists pose little threat.
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Courtesy U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service
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The elephants, scientists found, also respond aggressively to red clothing, traditionally worn by young Maasai men. The findings are to be published online Oct.
18 by the research journal Current Biology.
This seems to be the first experimental demonstration “that any animal can categorize a single species of potential predator into subclasses based on such subtle cues,” said
co-author Lucy Bates of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
The researchers, with the long-running Amboseli Elephant Research Project, showed elephants clean, red clothing and red clothing worn for five days by either a Maasai or a Kamba man. Maasai-scented clothing prompted the animals to travel significantly faster in the first minute after they began to move, the investigators found. The elephants also traveled farther from the cloth smelling of the Maasai in the first five minutes, and took longer to relax.
The scientists then tested whether elephants could use garment color alone to classify people. The elephants reacted more aggressively to red than to white cloth, they found, adding that to elephants, red actually looks drab.
Elephants’ tendency to flee at the mere whiff of a person may have other implications, said the university’s Richard Byrne, also a co-author. “While elephants can undoubtedly be dangerous when they come into conflict with humans, our data shows that, given the opportunity, they would far rather run
away,” he remarked. “We see this experiment as just a start to investigating precisely how elephants ‘see the world,’ but it may be that their abilities will turn out to equal or exceed those of our closer relatives, the monkeys and apes.”
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Elephants are remarkably perceptive in distinguishing human ethnic groups that vary in the degree of danger they’re likely to pose, a study has found.
Elephants in Kenya reacted with greater fear to the scent of garments previously worn by Maasai warriors than those worn by Kamba men, the researchers reported. Maasai warriors are known to demonstrate their virility by spearing elephants, while Kamba agriculturalists pose little threat, they explained.
The elephants, they found, also respond aggressively to red clothing, traditionally worn by young Maasai men. The findings are to be published online on Oct. 18th by the research journal Current Biology.
This seems to be the first experimental demonstration “that any animal can categorize a single species of potential predator into subclasses based on such subtle cues,” said co-author Lucy Bates of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Researchers with the long-running Amboseli Elephant Research Project first showed elephants clean, red clothing and red clothing worn for five days by either a Maasai or a Kamba man. Maasai-scented clothing prompted the animals to travel significantly faster in the first minute after they began to move, the investigators found. The elephants also traveled farther from the cloth smelling of the Maasai in the first five minutes, and took longer to relax.
The scientists then tested whether elephants could use garment color alone to classify people. The elephants reacted more aggressively to red than to white cloth, they found, adding that to elephants, red actually looks drab.
Elephants’ tendency to flee at the mere whiff of a person may have other implications, said the university’s Richard Byrne, also a co-author. “While elephants can undoubtedly be dangerous when they come into conflict with humans, our data shows that, given the opportunity, they would far rather run away… we see this experiment as just a start to investigating precisely how elephants ‘see the world,’ but it may be that their abilities will turn out to equal or exceed those of our closer relatives, the monkeys and apes.”
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