Elephants Can Recognize Friend From Foe

Oct. 19, 2007 -- With just a whiff of body odor or a glimpse of clothing, an elephant can tell whether or not a person likely has threatening or non-threatening intentions, new research suggests.

Although such abilities have long been suspected in elephants and other animals, the research, published in the journal, Current Biology, could present the first documented proof that elephants can categorize a single species of potential predator -- in this case, us -- into subclasses based on extremely subtle cues.

The determination also indicates elephant intelligence has yet to be fully measured.

"People often assume that elephants are very intelligent, and they certainly have long memories but, beyond that, we haven't much clue yet," co-author Richard Byrne told Discovery News. "Our current paper is just a first step towards finding out."

"But the fact that elephants can use different cues, such as color of garment and body scent, to (evaluate) the potential presence of danger does suggest that their understanding of (certain) situations is very human-like," added Byrne, who is a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of St. Andrews.

Byrne and his colleagues conducted the research on 18 family groups of wild African elephants in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania that are part of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project. Maasai and Kamba people also live in the area.

Maasai men wear red and sometimes demonstrate their virility by spearing elephants. The Kamba, on the other hand, usually don't wear red, live in agriculture-based communities and rarely confront the elephants.

The researchers presented the elephants with four different types of clothing: clean, unworn red garments; red clothes worn by Kamba men for five days; red clothes worn by Maasai men for the same period of time; and white clothing.

While perhaps not detectable by other humans, all people emit their own particular body odor, which is usually affected by diet. In this case, the Maasai consume occasional cattle blood and meat along with a lot of dairy products, while the Kamba diet is mostly comprised of vegetables, meat and corn meal products.

Although the researchers say red does not normally signal much of anything to elephants, in this case red over white caused the elephants to shrink away in fear or exhibit aggressive displays.

"The reason elephants are aggressive towards red garments, even in the comforting absence of human scent, must be because they associate red clothing with the Maasai, whom they do not like for obvious reasons," Byrne explained.