Jumbo-licious! Watch how Asian Elephant Pang Pha peels bananas before eating them

Bananas are one of the best fruits since they are delicious, high in potassium, and come with in-built biodegradable packaging. And it's not just people that agree—a large portion of the animal kingdom, such as gorillas, bats, and elephants, like the fruit as a delicacy. Elephants frequently use their trunks to scoop up bananas, which they then swallow whole. Interestingly, one picky Asian elephant, in particular, seems to dislike the fibrous peel of the fruit because she has figured out how to peel it off.

Elephants are capable of 'complex human-derived manipulation behaviours'

Amazing video captures elephant Pang Pha squeezing the banana to snap off the top, shaking out the insides, tossing the skin, picking up the soft pulp, and popping it into her mouth. Scientists think Pang Pha probably learnt this method by observing her zookeepers peel bananas since she lives alone. This elaborates on how elephants are capable of learning "complex human-derived manipulation behaviours." 

A study undertaken by scientists has published their results in Current Biology. "We discovered a very unique behaviour," said Dr Michael Brecht, from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience. "What makes Pang Pha's banana peeling so unique is a combination of factors—skillfulness, speed, individuality, and the putatively human origin—rather than a single behavioural element."

Pang Pha eats entirely green or yellow bananas whole

Pang Pha eats entirely green or yellow bananas whole, like her peers, and does not peel every banana. She also outright disapproves of brown bananas, yet when given a yellow banana with brown spots, she employs her peeling method. 

Pang Pha eats as many yellow-brown bananas whole as she can while she is surrounded by other elephants and a pile of them before saving the final one to peel later. Only a few documented cases of this activity exist, and none of the other elephants at the zoo exhibit it.

The researchers from Germany claim in their study on Pang Pha, which was just published in Current Biology, that it is still unclear why she peels her bananas, much less in such specific circumstances. According to their main explanation, she picked up the skill from observing her keepers, who hand-reared her, as they removed the skins from the fruit before giving it to her.