Ferris Jabr, writing for Scientific American, describes the wonderful "aha moment" a seven year old elephant named Kandula had in 2010. Kandula's home is at the National Zoo in Washington DC. This is how Jabr describes Kandula's aha moment:.

"One day in 2010, while taking a stroll in his backyard, Kandula the elephant smelled something scrumptious. The scent pulled his attention skyward. There, seemingly suspended in the air, was a sprig of bamboo decorated with bits of cantaloupe and honeydew. Stretching out his trunk, he managed to get the fruit and break off a piece of the branch, but the rest of the tasty leaves remained tantalizingly out of reach. Without hesitation he marched straight to a large plastic cube in the yard, rolled it just beneath the hovering bamboo and used it as a step stool to pull the whole branch to the ground. Seven-year-old Kandula had never before interacted with a cube in this manner. Determined to satisfy his stomach and his curiosity, he did something scientists did not know elephants could do: he had an aha moment."

You can read the rest of Jabr's wonderful story about elephants by clicking here. And you can watch Kandula show how smart elephants really are in the following video.