Do elephants know when we're looking at them?
Kyoto UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
Kyoto, Japan -- With their massive flapping ears and long trunks, it isn't hard to believe that elephants tend to rely on acoustic and olfactory cues for communication. They use gestures and visual displays to communicate as well, but we don't really know how much. Visual communication research has mainly focused on species that are primarily visual, like nonhuman primates.
A previous study demonstrated that African savanna elephants can recognize human visual attention based on a person's face and body orientation, but this had yet to be investigated in their Asian cousins. Asian elephants split from African elephants millions of years ago, so their behavior and cognition differ in some aspects.
Motivated to find out whether Asian elephants share this ability with African elephants, a team of researchers at Kyoto University turned their attention to elephants in Thailand.
- Journal
- Scientific Reports
- Funder
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan Science and Technology Agency