Elephants can distinguish 'friend or foe'

Elephants have the ability to identify who is the friend, who is the enemy, and assess the level of danger of many different objects through the smell and color of the clothes they are wearing. Dr. Lucy Bates and Professor Richard Byrne of St Andrews University (UK) discovered this in the process of studying the behavior of African elephants living in Kenya and Tanzania.

First, the elephants were exposed to two red clothes, one was washed and one was worn by a member of the Maasai or Kamba tribe for several days. When they discovered the smell of Maasai men, tribes or elephants to eat meat, the elephants showed fear and fled. When exposed to the Kamba tribe's clothing that specializes in farming, they also ran but were slower and stopped to ' take a break '.

In addition, the elephant herd reacts aggressively to red - the traditional costume character of the Maasai - the nomadic native African tribe living in Kenya and southern Tanzania. This proves that animals associate red with clothes of ' enemies '.

Researchers believe that the difference in elephant's emotional response to odor and color is related to how dangerous they feel. This is the first study to show that any animal can distinguish ' friend or foe ' based on their own identifiable signs.

African elephants often run fast when they detect the Maasai vapor. (Photo: BBC)

THANH TRUC