Elephants can smell quantities of food. A talent that might be rare in the animal kingdom.
Mammals and birds are known to use their eyesight to differentiate between more or fewer amounts of food. However, little studies have tested their other senses, such as their sense of smell.
A study by Joshua Plotnik et al, (2019) shows that when presented with two buckets of sunflower seeds, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) could choose buckets with larger quantities than those with fewer. Using only their sense of smell to do so.
The elephants were more likely to choose the bucket which held the most seeds when the difference between buckets was greatest. This finding suggests that elephants could be unique in their use of olfaction in cognitive tasks.
So why would an elephant need to be able to identify quantities of food?
That’s because if you can identify a greater source of food for you and your group, your chances of survival will increase. Especially if you live in an environment where food resources can be scarce.
Every day animals, including humans, rely on the ability to differentiate between more and less. Such as when making judgments about social relationships, territories, and food.
Animals, therefore, must need to assess their habitat accurately in order to make advantageous decisions. That is, to choose areas with greater quantities of food, yet lower risks of negative impacts like the risk of danger based on group size and the risk of predation.
So with such an important decision impacting survival, there could indeed be many more undocumented examples of animals using olfaction in this way too.
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