Elephant Painting an Elephant

zombiegirl

This video is astounding to me. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, everyone knows that elephants are supposed to be very intelligent... But I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that this video makes me think and feel differently about animals. The fact that this elephant is able to imagine in his mind this image and create it, I don't know what to say... I've seen chimpanzees painting before, but it tends to be abstract. I've never seen an other animal do such a clearly defined image. Are animals really so different from you and I?

RebeccaS

I LOVE this guy! Elephants are amazing, and this is just mind blowing. Thanks

Beej

No. Not so different from you and I. Apart from the clothes. Which makes most of us just look plain silly. Oh that and the flags we fly. Those are pretty silly too.

RebeccaS

@TheBeejAbides Apart from the clothes. Which makes most of us just look plain silly.

I was just looking at the Chanel fall collection and thinking the exact same thing

zombiegirl

RebeccaS said:

@TheBeejAbides Apart from the clothes. Which makes most of us just look plain silly.

I was just looking at the Chanel fall collection and thinking the exact same thing

I seriously don't understand runway fashion. They make all of these crazy outfits, but you almost never see anyone wearing them. Lady Gaga and Bjork aside, even most celebrities tend to stick to tamer ensembles.

But back on topic...this video makes me wonder if maybe we don't give animals enough credit. I've always wondered to what degree they were capable of cognitive thinking.

andyrobyn

On a slightly more disturbing point, I visited Thailand again last year this time with my daughter. She did some research before we travelled and found that the elephants who perform these type of activities for tourists are not doing so spontaneously - rather they are trained and as is visible from the sharp implement in the trainer hand at the beginning of the video, their sensitive ears are often proded and other physically painful stratgies are employed in the training.

zombiegirl

That did answer a few questions I had about it...

Tosh

zombiegirl said:

I've always wondered to what degree they were capable of cognitive thinking.

My dog will look in the direction of my finger when I point to something. I think that in itself is a massive amount of understanding if you think about the processes involved.

He also understands 'action and rewards' and sometimes just simply refuses to do something unless he thinks he's going to get something out of it. In this way, it's like he's training us - he's modifying our behaviour - by his actions. I think that's smart.

When he gets a special treat, he loves to take it somewhere to eat where he will be comfortable. He'll even go looking about the house, checking for open bedroom doors (he loves beds) with the treat in his mouth; he won't eat it till he's satisfied he's found the most comfortable place possible; in a patch of Sunshine if possible. We keep bedroom doors shut!

Even dogs are smart.

Dakini

This is a business developed by Thai monks who had a lot of free time on their hands. I thought it was pretty cool (even knowing the elephants were trained) until I read andyrobyn's post, above, about the sharp jabs to the ears. eww!

PeaceOfMe

to believe I can't even draw a stick person XD
haha thanks for sharing..this vid is awesome an 2 cute! :]

Kangaroo

Sometimes my dog winks at me. I wink back just in case it's some kind of code.

taiyaki

Thank you for this.

Zero

It's the daily mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1151283/Can-jumbo-elephants-really-paint--Intrigued-stories-naturalist-Desmond-Morris-set-truth.html

That said, why not browse:

http://www.elephantartgallery.com/

I've seen that dolphins have learnt to respond to a 'create' command - the command is: :om: - a certain group will innovate their own tricks when shown this command.

It's an innate trait in dogs - even a puppy will do this - a child learns to do it in 2-3 years... a chimpanzee is never able to do it - in a human mind, the notion of 'self' is learnt - it requires various abstract processes that are developed in infancy.

A lot of current research on the subject - lots of very clever dogs doing very sweet things and teaching us about our brains - current proposition is that dogs evolved with us and evolved traits beyond their canine counterparts so as to better assimilate into our culture and way of life.

DairyLama

@Zero

I've seen that dolphins have learnt to respond to a 'create' command

It just means that if you stop giving us fish we go on strike.