Elephants can wash with a hose – and sabotage shower time, scientists say

If you get frustrated by the shower hog in your house you’re not alone: research suggests such behaviour might even irritate elephants.

Scientists say they have not only discovered an elephant with an astonishing ability to shower with a hose, but spotted another cutting off the flow of water – possibly in a deliberate act of sabotage.

Dr Michael Brecht, a co-author of the study from Humboldt University of Berlin, said: “I actually had a grin on my face all day because I thought it was so funny.”

Myriad animals from chimpanzees to crows use tools, with elephants also adept at such behaviour. “Basically it’s in the context of body care, so [elephants] grab palm leaves and use them as fly swatters or stuff like that,” Brecht said.

The study investigates elephants’ use of a water hose, revealing how one Asian elephant at Berlin zoo, called Mary, used her trunk to lift a hose and wield it like a shower head – raising her hind legs for a rinse while washing with it. She also grasped the hose further back, swinging it like a lasso, to spray her back.

Brecht said one possible explanation is that a hose has similarities to a trunk – an appendage elephants also use to spray themselves. But he said it is unclear how Mary acquired her sophisticated hose skills, noting none of the other four elephants at the zoo had similar abilities.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, the team said Mary tended to shower the right side of her body when using her trunk but her left side when using the hose, noting her choice to use the hose varied with its diameter – possibly because a smaller diameter made it harder to handle.

But Mary’s extended shower time caused some strife. She became defensive of the hose and aggressive towards a younger female, Anchali, sometimes smacking the latter with her trunk.

Anchali, however, was no mere bystander: while all the elephants were trained not to step on hoses, the team found Anchali using her trunk to kink and compress the hose, interrupting the flow of water.

To investigate whether this disruption to Mary’s showers was intentional, the researchers repeatedly presented Anchali with two hoses, only one of which went to Mary. The results were inconclusive, with Anchali often picking whichever hose was closest, but the team say they suspect the disruption could be a purposeful act of sabotage, noting Anchali’s manipulation of the hose was complex and became more effective over time.

“The thing that did it for me, despite the ambiguous control experiments, was when she came up with this other very funny behaviour that we had never seen in an elephant,” Brecht said. Anchali was seen performing a sort of headstand on the hose using her trunk, again blocking the water.

Whether Anchali was acting in good humour, however, remains unclear.

“It’s something we would really like to know – does she think it’s funny?” said Brecht. “I think it’s very funny, but we really don’t know. Maybe she’s just trying to be mean.”