Richard Collins: Does an elephant's big brain help them with problem-solving?

Scientists have examined the problem-solving abilities of wild elephants using puzzle boxes and jackfruit

Sarah Jacobson et al. Innovating to solve a novel puzzle: wild Asian elephants vary in their ability to problem solve. Animal Behaviour. 2023

The elephant has the largest brain of any land mammal. Its ‘grey matter’ — crucial to thinking and problem-solving — is also more extensive. Impressive mental feats, therefore, might be expected of such a beast.

However, in a paper published in 2007, Benjamin Hart and colleagues claimed that the elephant’s performance in tests of cognition and tool-use "is unimpressive compared to the performance of chimpanzees and ourselves". They also note that "the neurons of the cervical cortex of elephants are much less densely packed than those of chimpanzees". As the elephant’s school report might say, this pupil ‘could do better’.