An elephant at a zoo in the United States has taken up a new hobby.

Shanthi, a 36-year-old Asian elephant at Washington's Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, has learnt to play the harmonica with her trunk.

Keeper Debbie Flinkman said that Shanthi likes to play, even when there is no audience to listen, and composes her own tunes.

"When she finds (a sound) that is interesting, she sticks with it and does it for a little while and amuses all of us," she said.

Shanthi will play for several minutes at a time, exhaling to play a pattern, then inhaling for a different sound and moving to another end of the harmonica for a different note.

Debbie said: "Not only does she stand there and play the device, she just doesn't blow through it a few times and go away, but she stays there, at length, and if you knew this elephant, her favourite thing is eating, so she is not eating and she is doing something else, it must be highly interesting to her."