Can Elephants Be Used To Complete A Cooperative Task?

Have you ever heard of elephants using teamwork to complete a cooperative task? After reading an article, “Elephants can lend a helping trunk”, and watching a video, “Elephants know when they need a helping trunk in a cooperative task”, I can infer that elephants can work together and use strategy to complete tricky assignments. Both the article and the video have similarities, to help the reader understand the idea of what the elephants must do and how they did it. After doing a study, scientist believe that elephants are among the worlds most cognitively advanced animals. According to the article and the video, They created an excellent challenge that two elephants had to complete together. The task was tricky but the elephants figured it out, and even found more efficient ways to do it.

The task consisted of two elephants working together to earn a treat. The elephants had to pull a rope with their trunks, connected to a table, simultaneously to reach a bowl of corn. Twelve elephants were divided into six pairs, and were released one by one to the ropes, waiting for their partners. If the first animal pulled on the rope before their partner got there, the rope would slip out, leaving the table and snacks in place. Joshua Plotnik said,” This taught them to pull together.” They changed many of the variables in the experiment, making it trickier for the elephants. “These are clever experiments.” says Karen McComb. The article states that, the study adds to the growing body of evidence that elephants show more impressive cognitive