News Animals

This elephant peels bananas, but only slightly ripe ones

Studying the rare ability may shed light on how the animals learn

Asian elephant grabbing a banana with her trunk

Pang Pha takes a banana from a researcher at the Berlin Zoo. Whether the elephant peels the fruit before eating it depends on its ripeness.

Lena Kaufmann

By Nora Bradford

Do you peel bananas from the top or bottom? One elephant goes with a third option.

When handed a slightly browning banana, Pang Pha, an Asian elephant at Zoo Berlin, will use her trunk to break the fruit, shake the pulp onto the ground, discard the peel and then shove the pulp into her mouth, researchers report in the April 10 Current Biology.