Elephants distinguish between hunters and farmers….

Had I not pursued a career in psychology, I think my next logical choice was to be an ethologist. I think animal behavior is endlessly fascinating, but I just couldn’t get past biology curriculum requirements to study plants and fungi (my apologies to botanists everywhere). One of my favorite animals is the elephant, whose cognitive abilities are truly remarkable.

In an earlier post, we discussed the possibility that elephants have a sense of self, as evidenced by their ability to “pass” the mirror test. The parallels between human and elephant social behavior are also striking. Due to poaching patterns, young elephants are often without the stabilizing effects of older herd members, which in turn leads them to act like juvenile delinquents.

Lucy Bates and Richard Byrne, from the University of St. Andrews, further expand our understanding of these wonderful animals. In a paper due to appear in Current Biology, Bates and Byrne explain how elephants behaved aggressively when confronted with either the smell of Masai hunters or the color red, which is traditionally worn by the Masai. The elephants did not respond to just-washed clothing, Kamba farmers, or the color white.

It makes sense that a prey species would learn to avoid typical sources of danger. As an old rat-labber who started off studying classical conditioning, this result is not very surprising. If the sea hare, Aplysia californica, can do classical conditioning, we would suspect a sophisticated animal like the elephant to be very good indeed. Still, this was clever research that provided yet another window into the world of a fascinating species.