Vienna Zoo Elephants Get Carrot Diet, and Their Poop Tells the Story

Vienna, Austria – Dung samples from five African elephants at Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo have shown how a change in diet, including more carrots, altered the bacteria that help the animals digest their food.

A video released by the zoo on Thursday, November 12, shows a keeper collecting a sample from the elephant enclosure, researchers handling the samples in a laboratory and the elephants feeding in their park.

Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, the University of Oxford and the group Save the Elephants compared samples taken a year apart. They found the elephants' guts are dominated by bacteria that specialise in breaking down plant fibre, and that each animal has its own microbial signature.

The elephants were given more carrots before the second samples were taken, and the researchers found changes in enzymes that break down carbohydrates from carrots. The zoo said the findings could help tailor feeding to individual animals, and the methods will now be used on wild African elephants.