Initial findings on visual acuity thresholds in an African elephant (<i>Loxodonta africana</i>)

Shyan-Norwalt, Melissa R.; Peterson, J.A.; King, Barbara Milankow; Staggs, Timothy E.; Dale, Robert

doi:10.1002/zoo.20259

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Elephants rely primarily on their well-developed auditory and olfactory senses, as opposed to vision [27]; their retina has the same visual pigments as human ''color-blind'' deuteranopes [28], and initial findings suggest that they have poor visual acuity [29]. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, none of our elephants were able to use the experimenter's head-and-eye gaze direction alone to find the hidden food.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 89%

African Elephants Can Use Human Pointing Cues to Find Hidden Food

Smet

Byrne

2013

Current Biology

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How animals gain information from attending to the behavior of others has been widely studied, driven partly by the importance of referential pointing in human cognitive development [1-4], but species differences in reading human social cues remain unexplained. One explanation is that this capacity evolved during domestication [5, 6], but it may be that only those animals able to interpret human-like social cues were successfully domesticated. Elephants are a critical taxon for this question: despite their longstanding use by humans, they have never been domesticated [7]. Here we show that a group of 11 captive African elephants, seven of them significantly as individuals, could interpret human pointing to find hidden food. We suggest that success was not due to prior training or extensive learning opportunities. Elephants successfully interpreted pointing when the experimenter's proximity to the hiding place was varied and when the ostensive pointing gesture was visually subtle, suggesting that they understood the experimenter's communicative intent. The elephant's native ability in interpreting social cues may have contributed to its long history of effective use by man.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 89%

African Elephants Can Use Human Pointing Cues to Find Hidden Food

Smet

Byrne

2013

Current Biology

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“…Nissani et al ., ) or captive (e.g. Shyan‐Norwalt et al ., ) elephants, although recent work on visual lateralization preferences with wild Asian elephants should stimulate more studies on vision in the wild and captivity (Karenina et al ., ).…”

Section: Sensory Biologymentioning

confidence: 97%

Zoo elephant research: contributions to conservation of captive and free‐ranging species

Bechert

Brown

Dierenfeld

et al. 2019

International Zoo Yearbook

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African elephants Loxodonta africana and Asian elephants Elephas maximus are not thriving in many captive settings and are threatened throughout their native ranges. Many zoos support in situ conservation projects and provide opportunities to conduct ex situ research in controlled settings with comparably approachable animals. Zoo elephant projects may facilitate fieldwork with free‐ranging elephants (e.g. development of non‐invasive sampling and analytical tools), which may then also improve the husbandry of elephants in human care. Free‐ranging elephants also benefit from drug therapies and veterinary care when they are orphaned, kept as working elephants or brought in as rehabilitation cases – especially as human–elephant conflicts become more common as a result of ever‐expanding human populations. Much has been learned about the basic biology and husbandry needs of elephants but, often, the more we learn, the more questions arise. There are physiological differences between African and Asian elephants, and this should affect the management of these animals. This paper will provide brief overviews of the current state of knowledge regarding the pharmacology, nutrition, reproduction, sensory biology and diseases (primarily elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus infections) relevant to elephants with recommendations for future research.

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“…Previous research has examined the visual acuity (Shyan-Norwalt, Peterson, King, Staggs, & Dale, 2010), odor discrimination ability (Arvidsson, Amundin, & Laska, 2012), and auditory accuracy (Heffner & Heffner, 1982) of elephants as well as the long-term memory for familiar sensory information (Arvidsson et al, 2012). Elephants have been shown to preference the use of olfaction over other sensory modalities for certain tasks, using olfactory but not auditory information to locate food (Plotnik, Shaw, Brubaker, Tiller, & Clayton, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%