I forget which one but there was a great elephant sanctuary in Chang Mai that took in a lot of ex-working elephants and lets international volunteers stay for a few days to a few weeks. You'll get time to help feed and wash the elephants but expect to do a lot of the boring jobs they actually need help with.
Pack your bags and head over to Cambodia to Elephant Valley Project. They have this conservation project where you'll be helping scientists and researchers in studying the life of Asian Elephants who used to thrive there. There will be no selfies and bathing elephants, but there will be opportunities to see elephants doing elephant things and all that.
The Elephant family tree just sounds like a family reunion where you have to play the guessing game of "Am I actually related to you, or where you just yoinked into this family and now I call you uncle?"
Funnily enough my mom's hometown is a similar situation where when you meet someone the question is "Ok I know I'm related to you, but how am I related to you?" ... It was a VERY small town...
Crazy how elephants got so many weird looking relatives, them being pretty weird looking too; and yet they earned so many people's hearts, mine included
I always stand by the opinion that Elephants and Giraffes are some of the most unique animals on the planet and even in fiction. I feel like someone from the distant past would sooner believe in something like a Unicorn before an Elephant.
Fun fact: Up until the end of the Pleistocene there were members of the Elephant family on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, to the point where North America had 4 living on the same continent, The Wooly Mammoth, Colombian Mammoth, the American mastodon and Cuvieronius a species of Gompthothere. Yea they basically ruled the world before it changed too quickly for them to adapt.
@@MrAtrox98 Moreso Humans showed up at the worst possible time, especially since animals as large as Elephants were struggling with their world rapidly changing and unable to breed fast enough to break even, add a new apex predator who can even kill adults.. yea there’s a reason why they quickly became extinct.
@@smashers6971Considering that the Pleistocene experienced numerous climatic shifts, the idea that mammoths, mastodons, and other megafauna as a whole would’ve perished from climate change doesn’t have much to stand on. A warming and more humid climate 10,000 years would’ve in fact benefitted mastodons and gompotheres at the very least, as those proboscideans were adapted for forest and marsh habitat. Mammoths wouldn’t have done as well, but even the cold adapted wooly variety lived through five previous interglacials with little issue and were the last ones standing among their genus despite a shrinking habitat for them. Columbian mammoths would’ve done well on the Great Plains and surrounding open woodlands had they survived to the modern age. The three surviving elephant species lived through the expansion of humans because hominid predators were nothing new to their ancestors.
cuvieronius dint lived on USA trough only in Southern Mexico and many parts of central America the last species was completely tropical also the fact that we lost soo many proboscideans makes my sad
Saw an elephant video on Facebook where it turned a human into a folding chair. Made me kinda sick but like he said, they're still wild animals. I love Elephants though.
IIRC, isn't that from a quote by Peter Cullen, voice actor of Optimus Prime, when describing how his brother inspired him how to play the character back in the 80s? Definitely, a beast form for Optimus Prime should be an elephant.
Elephants are human smart. My brother worked for Barnum and Bailey's circus in the early 70's and he told me about a wrangler who was abusive to the elephants. One day he was putting them in their train car and two females blocked the exits and then another leaned on him until he was erased. My brother totally believed with all his heart that they planned it.
I think the biggest flex of elephant intelligence is the fact that they’re clearly able to understand that not every human is a threat, but some definitely are, and so they clearly use their intelligence to differentiate on a case by case basis.
@@whitewall2253 To be fair, there's a lot of factors for us human to consider one-another a threat(and other things). All elephants need to figure out is if a human harbours a malicious intent, doesn't care, finds them amusing and playful, or that they harbour positive and helpful intent. Although that is no feat to laugh around since we can't even do that much.
I don't consider myself to be much of a klutz most of the time. I never drop things accidentally, have good hand/eye coordination etc, but I have this one area of my house where I have to twist my hips a bit before stepping down the single step there because I have a big wooden chest on the floor and thanks to that, I've not only stepped on my own feet/ankles more than a few times, but stumbling has caused me to break two toes and one bone in my foot over the years because of it. Nevermind me relating to stepping on my own body parts---I guess there's something to be said that I have intelligence and trip over it by just not bothering to use it to move the damn chest, too! 😵💫💀
You forgot one thing, elephants understand MUSIC! There's a video of a pianist playing the piano for some elephants and they actually bob their heads to the rhythm.
No doubt they'd love the tunes this man uses in the background. I've heard a lot from Runescape, and other classic game tracks. All great when I notice
Visiting Kenya, one of the tour operators told of about 15 years earlier when she was alone on a small property suffering with malaria with her months old baby who would not stop crying. She went out and walked around and around the cabin trying to calm the baby and her own feverishness for what felt like 2 or 3 hours. She did not notice that night had fallen and it was pitch black. She thought she had better go inside. This was when she discovered she was completely surrounded by elephants who had probably been there for quite a while. She was freaked but was able to make her way back inside no problem. In my view, a family herd like that one, full of mothers, would have heard the crying baby and known exactly what the mother was doing and probably knew that she was sick. IMO they surrounded her, just like they do their own vulnerable members, to protect her from predators. Once she was back inside they melted back into the bush. When this video reaches 100k views, please go to the Ithumba elephant rewilding unit of the Sheldrick Trust in Tsavo. It will change your relationship not only to elephants but also to the planet. I was there for 3 days and wanted to stay forever. Say high to Yatta and to my lovely foster no-longer-a-baby, Lemoyian, for me.
Sheldrick is awesome! Check out HERD Elephant Orphanage in South Africa too. I have learned so much from their videos, and they do so much for local communities, yet they are tiny!
That story about Lawrence and the elephant's visiting to pay respect for their late saviour is one of the sweetest things ever, enough to put tears on my eyes, it's so beautiful
My only question is how he managed to figure out how to get the elephants to understand him. The guy in the video did say that elephants understand that men are more likely to be dangerous so...🤷♂️ also I don't mean that in any ideological way just to clarify.
@@RClipsGaming101he was talking about a specific herd that learned the difference between the language of tribes that didn't hunt them vs the tribe that did
I'm from Detroit and i remember when our zoo sent our elephants to a sanctuary because they needed more space. The zoo tried to buy the golf course next to it, but they refused to sell. It was bitter sweet, because the original elephants helped build the zoo a hundred years ago, and as kids you'd follow the elephant foot prints to get to their enclosure, but the Detroit zoo has always been a put animals first place (some enclosures are so big you almost never see the animals), and everyone knew it was what was best for the elephants.
Tbh I be walking around appreciating the zoo's efforts to do the best for their animals until I finally find the animal and I just start to appreciate and admire the animal that I was here to see (but tbh why would they let the visitors go into the animal enclosures that would be dangerous)
@AzarianaSaurusthetimberwolf I love that our zoo doesn't keep our animals in cages and that most are rescues (like our 3 grizzly brothers. Their mother was killed. They were too young to survive alone, so they were sent across the country to our zoo) or are for conservation. I'd much rather have a leisurely stroll through a place looking at lovely gardens, statues, and interesting habitats and occasionally seeing happy animals then for sure seeing animals in cages like at some zoos. Like I've never seen the wolves for example. My sister has a few times, but they've never been out while I'm there, and I'm OK with that.
The Kansas City zoo have the same problem, their Savannah area is so huge you never saw anything! But they do crazy things like keep the kangaroos out. You can literally just walk up to a kangaroo and touch it. But they're small, they're not the big muscular ones you see on videos LOL. Our zoo kind of sucks, but it's getting better. At least they take care of the animals.
@manichispanic5234 lol you can walk through the kangaroo enclosure at the Detroit zoo too. You have to stay on the path, but they're free roaming in there. The butterfly house and bird aviary are the same. IDK why they let people hangout with kangaroos...I guess they're kinda Australia's version of deer lol
9:10 the most effective fence against elephants is a wire fence, but with beehives every 30ish feet. Elephants are so leery of bees that they supposedly even have a specific alarm call for angry bees.
I love that tumblr post that wondered why humans don't have a specific sound for "there are bees nearby let's leave immediately" without realizing that is the specific sound
Peppers work too. They gotta be really hot though. Crush them into a paste and spread along the fence, keeps elephants away. Got do it every so often though
I think the only reason that elephants aren’t the dominant species of the world is because they already were, they were just too well adapted to have a need for shelters or a large scale community or adaptation such as fire or migration. They were just so well off they simply had already reached the peak, and didn’t need anything more
Agreed. It’s another reason I respect the Detroit Zoo. In 2005 it was the first zoo in the country to transfer its elephants to an elephant sanctuary. Thats not even the best part. The best part is, the decision was made based on the ethical treatment of the animal. Not finances, not press/marketing…
A sanctuary is nicer in what way exactly? I mean I don’t know the situation exactly, but was the issue that the elephant was poorly adjusted to human presence or the zoo was lacking adequate space? I’m certain there were good reasons, but I’m mostly asking because sanctuaries really aren’t automatically better than zoo's. Zoo's have expectations and laws placed on them written in past blood, sanctuaries don't even seem to have strict legal definitions sometimes.
@@No-longer1 Here in TN the Sanctuary is large, has a herd of elephants and they aren't forced to be in front of humans. They put up cameras to help promote and get funding. I looked into volunteering and you do not do anything with them, you are doing chores around the place.
@@No-longer1Good sanctuaries are there for the animals - they do their best to let them have their natural behaviors and social bonds, take care of them medically if needed, and otherwise leave them alone. They're not designed to put animals on display for human benefit like zoos are. For elephants especially, the best sanctuaries have large acreage that allows the elephants to roam and graze freely, go indoors to their barn or outdoors as they see fit, and have company in the form of other sanctuary elephants. Check out the Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary - they do good work. There's also one in California, I believe.
@@No-longer1 Sanctuaries (a good one at least) puts the needs of the animal first. Zoos often have other needs to worry about, like letting people view the animal or attracting visitors. Sanctuaries can also be more specialized and give more space to the animals. Elephants need a lot of room to roam, and an acre or two doesn't really cut it. Sanctuaries can provide the space, enrichment, and socialization that some zoos cannot provide. Keep in mind too that the good zoos we tend to look up to are not the majority. Most zoos are small, roadside locations that sometimes struggle to even meet the minimum requirements of care. A zoo is not somehow magically better just because it puts the word zoo in it's name, just like how a sanctuary isn't inherently better because it has the word sanctuary in there. It's all about the care of the animals. Personally I'd also like to see better laws surrounding wildlife care. In the U.S. the minimum standards of care haven't been updated since the freaking 80's. The minimum for a pool enclosure for an orca must be at least twelve feet deep and forty-eight feet across horizontally. Think about that. Twelve feet deep? Most Orca grow longer than that.
Man, I remember back when I visited my friend in a village near Way Kambas National Park. There was a herd of elephant walking near the villager's rice field. And one guy shouted "Please don't go there, we just planted them." One of them just nod at him like "aight, bruh." There is also a certain part of the rice field in that village that's used for papaya, banana, and sugarcanes for the elephants so they doesn't destroy the rice fields. The people did that because scaring them actually did more harm and cost more money so they did that. Dude, idk they're chill like that.
I was working in Central India about ten years ago. During the harvest season, the villagers would hold night vigils to keep the elephant herds away from their paddy. They used to use fireworks to change the direction of the herd (probably because elephants have such sensitive ears). Well, one time they stampeded right into the edge of a village where there were straw and wood huts. THe adults managed to skeddadle but there was an infant who was in a cradle, on top of which the beams and thatch collapsed. Inspite of the fireworks and the noise the people were making, the matriarch stuck around long enough to lift the beams and thatch off the the cradle/cot and gingerly pick the baby up and set it down in the courtyard before leaving! Since then, the people in the village use means like keeping some food for the herds aside as a means of keeping them off the crop! They even built them a new watering hole!
Elephants are my favorite animal, period. I love how intelligent they are. Not just great memories, but they have such stong family bonds, show empathy better than some humans, are so self aware, and even mourn the dead. It's incredible how like us they are mentally. All the more reason to protect this beautiful animal.
My favorite animals are bats, but my dad's favorites are elephants so I've long respected them by default. Both animals are compassionate, social, and full of crazy powers! Now imagine something with both hand-wings and a prehensile snake nose... would that be an eat?
For me, one of the craziest Elephant stories I ever heard was of one that got shot and actively sought out people to help it. If memory serves right, there was an Elephant that survived getting shot in the forehead and journeyed to a ranger center to get treatment. The staff tranquilized it and did their work but were curious as to where this Elephant came from as this wasn't one that they had raised and released back into the wild. They followed it back to its herd and among the other Elephants was one that had been raised in the center. The idea that an Elephant got hurt and was told by another Elephant to go to this location for help says so much about their intelligence.
"They don't belong in captivity." You just reminded me of the lonely Mali the Elephant who was alone for most of her life in Manila Zoo. She died back in October, but at least she's free from loneliness now.
This is genuinely a tough issue though especially for Asian elephants. The asian elephants are genuinely in danger of extinction in the wild, and the captive ones are important for the genetic health of the species. Also captive elephants are have been part of many of those cultures for thousands of years. However, at the same time they methods of training and socializing domestic/ captive elephants in Asia are often far crueler than they should be or need to be.
@@flyingeagle3898 I would call into question the importance of captive elephants and their genetics. There has never been a zoo with a program where they release captive born elephants into the wild, but plenty that have taken wild born elephants into captivity. There's also serious concern about how well they thrive in captive environments, as more captive elephants die than are born. Basically, without a consistent supply of wild elephants the captive population is not sustainable, and that includes North America.
@@dragongirl89115 yea it makes no sense to charge people to see a single elephant for "research" in a country it's not even native. It makes sense that the elephant is more profitable that way and easier than fixing the problem where it is. I'd rather take war $$ and help the elephants with our tax paid foreign "aid." 🐘
@dragongirl89115 I think releasing captive born animals into the wild would be comparable to releasing city raised people into the country. They have shelter, food, usually peers. So it would be a culture shock! They'd need to find things they have not been raised to do.
100/10 video. Learned a lotta new stuff. Fun fact about elephants in the jungle. Their imprints create the tiniest of puddles, that when filled with water create safe havens for small fish to hatch and grow. They get to the next river by hopping from puddle to puddle. If that's not adorable, I don't know what is. 🐘
I had the pleasure to visit an Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand last winter and I have to say, they're truly amazing and intelligent beasts. The way they were open to socializing with us, getting fed by us, and getting bathed by us is flabbergasting even compared to humans. Every elephant deserves an incredible life.
I'm pretty sure I've seen cows being tortured and killed have tears in their eyes. Also when their babies are snatched from them by the dairy industry.
@@earthling_parthyeah no you havent. they simply do not have the capability to feel that because they do not recognize what it is. Bulls will literally kill calves if they think it aint theres or its in their way. have you not seen CG's other stuff?
I just wanted to stop by and say that I love seeing your videos come up in my timeline man. So much of the stuff every week all look these days is also damn dark and negative, that it’s really a little moment of joy when I get to just chill and watch one of these. Despite the casual aesthetic your relentless positivity and clear love for all of these animals always makes the day a little better man. Never change, dude!
Good news girl is also good for this. Lots of feel good stories about animals a lot of the time and she also has some subtle plays on words that are cute. Not as many as here, but still fun.
It is insane to me how keen the elephants sense of time is. Returning three exact anniversaries in a row is something humans took millennia to figure out
To be fair, it took elephants millions of years to get that sense of time. Humans have a tendency to speed run what took other animals millions to billions of years in under a couple thousands of years. 😉
@@bdoglance Actually you could argue that that might be an example of our intelligence since we developed a way for us to compensate for our lack of such a strong memory.
I'm not a cynic, but I find it extremely difficult to believe they returned for anniversaries. Elephants are very well attuned to the passing of time and seasons, but the 365 day calendar is a human concept, one that is simply out of reach of an elephant's understanding. debunked
Your description of various part of elephant reminded me of story in India A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear. From here it has two version One where they conclude that they each must have perceived a different beast although they experienced the same elephant. Other they start fighting each other since one thing other is lying untill a sage come and explain this. Now that I think about it Describing Animal like Elephant and Giraffe to someone who doesn't know them must be hard The moral of the story is that Subjective experience can be true, but that such experience is inherently limited by its failure to account for other truths or a totality of truth. Or that truth isn't limited to one person
@@themockingdragon135 funny thing is In 1414, a giraffe-a creature unknown in China at the time-was presented to the Yongle emperor (r. 1403-24) from the king of Bengal, which was a major trading center on the maritime route between the Arabian Peninsula and China. The Chinese immediately associated it with the qilin, an auspicious mythical creature. Since it was so bizarre to them Qilin generally has Chinese Dragon-like features: similar heads with antlers eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards. The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse, or more commonly a goat. Even the Japanese name of the giraffe is kirin the Japanese name of Qilin. There is also a theory that Greeks called Indian rhinoceros unicorns which later became horses with one horn ( also Rhino are related to horses so...) And many dinosaur fossils were probably called dragon bone World is fascinating isn't it
That's also interesting cause it suggests it's convergent evolution, learning to use a prehensile organ being down by getting a feel for it in a way that's safe.
The fact that I watched this whole thing not even intending to watch it fully shows how interesting this guys content is… Not to mention how amazing these animals are
I read an article about a Thai log yard in the 1890s. One of the rules was that if an employee offended an elephant he was immediately sacked - for his own safety. The elephant would not forget and sooner or later it would get the offending employee into a position where it could kill him.
5:17 Aww, look at that elephant running away from the baby buffalo to not trample it. It brought a tear to my eye. The mom's in the back running behind the baby screaming "You're gonna die idiot!"
I believe this is how the myth about elephants being "scared" of mice came about. They aren't scared, they are just trying to be careful around those super tiny critters 🥺
@@charityquill4965and because they might not be able to see them, but smell and hear them so that could’ve spooked those that haven’t seen a mouse before
i unironically started to tear up when you told the story of Lawrence Anthony. Genuinely heartbreaking that they mourned him, I knew elephants were incredibly intelligent and social creatures but to that extent i had no idea. Mad respect for our trunky brothers.
To show up on the exact date of his death they'd have to accurately keep track of the 365 days in a year using nothing but their minds. I don't know if most humans are capable of that.
8:48 Considering there are at least 14 elephants on the planet right now that actively dabble in painting, some of which can actually produce comprehensible results (which is something not even chimpanzees can say), they're not far off from being able to watch Rick and Morty.
@@derpstick5467 I heard that the elephants were trained to paint to attract tourists (they were also selling the paintings), and the trainers used some "interesting" methods to do it.
There are stories of elephants understanding people, in Malay communities as recently as a couple generations ago, when elephants were still part of regular life. For example, a domestic elephant (born domestic, child of a domesticated elephant) was moved to a rehabilitation centre in another state, because the country is modernising and people no longer kept elephants. Its past owner’s grandson traveled there at one point and decided to visit. He called out to the elephant herd at the centre, asking if the children of so-and-so (the elephant’s name with his family) who belonged to the family of so-and-so (his grandfather) would step out to see him. And amazingly, a few elephants did.
I went to an elephant sanctuary here in Thailand once, and they got a newly rescued baby and mom. I was a little kid and stupid and my parents weren't supervising me, and I stand a little too close to their pen, and the baby used its trunk to yank my hair. The mommy elephant come running to stop her baby by gently kicking it, pushing it away. Thinking back on it, the elephant parent did better job at watching their kid than mine did at that moment lol.
Elephants are so incredible. I love getting updates from Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where they rescue injured and orphaned elephants (and other animals) and reintroduce them into the wild. Every elephant has such a distinct personality, and the orphans that have grown up will still visit after giving birth to introduce their wild-born babies to their "human family". Even fully-wild bulls will show up at their gates when injured because they know that *those* humans will help them, even when *other* humans caused their injuries. Truly remarkable animals who deserve our care and respect.
One of my favorite elephant stores is that during the filming of Prehistoric Park, there was a plot line where Martha the Mammoth, needed to be introduced to a heard of elephants for her own mental health, and so the crew had this huge animatronic puppet that they were using as a stand-in…and as they were filming, the matriarch of the heard walked over and ACTUALLY accepted the animatronic (I don’t know what their plan was if that didn’t happen, but I think it’s cool that it did)
I'm always in awe of how merciful elephants and whales are as species with vastly more physical strength than we can really imagine. Despite our species viciously decimating them, they don't hold a permanent grudge, and to me that's humbling
There's a fantastic science-fiction book that I read a long time ago about whales that *sort of* hold a grudge. It's a fascinating read if you like cetaceans. It's called 'Cachalot' by Alan Dean Foster, if you're interested.
They hold grudges against some people and animals. Humpback whales will go out of their way to mess up orca hunts. Some believe it’s because orcas sometimes kill humpback calves, which take years to gestate. Elephants that have encountered poaching can have grudges against humans. Occasionally, poachers get trampled by elephants and then eaten by lions.
You’ve got to visit the elephant sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. I went there for a service trip at the end of high school and got to prepare food for and hand feed elephants. Trust me when I say, there is nothing like the feeling of an elephant’s trunk taking watermelon out of your hand. We were there for 10 days and there’s far too much to tell for a TH-cam comment, but we also got to build a check dam to create a watering hole for the local elephants on the reservation.
You are so lucky! Thank you for sharing that. I'm too ill to travel anymore, so I can't go, but you wrote it so vividly that it was quite the emotional impact to read it.
I remember working at a zoo with the elephants, and one of them was a blind rescue from another zoo. Despite not being able to see me he could always differentiate me from the other zoo keepers and would greet me with a pat on the head. ❤
This is a tear jerker because my mother's favorite animal is the elephant BECAUSE of their innate ability to have the sense of self awareness and love for their fellow species and their intelligence. Love your work man, I'll gladly share this with my mother
I always bawl at the story of Lawrence Anthony, the Elephant Whisperer. The relationship he had with the herd gave me my daily dose of serotonin today.
One possible explanation for them knowing about that dead conservationist, is that they sort of keep a calendar. Apparently, elephants respond very predictably to moon phases, so they clearly know how long it's been since they've last seen someone. I also read this one tidbit about how they observed one herd do weird trunk-waving at the moon that nobody could really explain. They figured it was about scent tracking on the wind or something, but one suggestion was that it was social behaviour celebrating the moon phases... which would mean they have proto-religion. ... I really hope they dive into that, because I desperately want to know about elephant moon cults
Elephants are my favorite animal, but what I say about them to others is always this: They are worthy of our admiration, respect, and fear. Admiration due to their beauty, respect due to their strength, altruism and intelligence, and fear due to their nature as wild animals, and in turn what they’re capable of when enraged. They’re majestic beasts. Thanks for making this video.
This video was dope. Another thing that Casual touched on but I wanted to elaborate is that elephants are the most emotionally complex animals that we know of. They process emotion and feelings at a much deeper and complex level compared to us humans. They can get PTSD and depression and true anxiety. They can love and be empathetic and show longing. We know this because the portion of the brain that controls emotions and feeling in elephants is so disproportionately large compared to what you'd see in other highly intelligent animals. Even for a brain the size of an elephants, the "emotional" part of their brains is still huge. They are processing and experiencing events around them in an entirely different way than we can probably even comprehend honestly. We are only JUST now truly unraveling the complexity of elephant emotions and intelligence. It's really crazy and makes you truly start to feel like us humans aren't as unique as we like to think we are.
The size of a brain doesn't correlate to a higher function, For various reasons-some scientific, some philosophical, some religious, some economic we have set the bar exceedingly high for recognizing emotions (other than anger and fear) in other animals. Saying absolutely that elephants (or other animals) are more empathetic requires an experiment, something that is difficult to do in the wild. The cerebral cortex of an elephant has about one-third of the number of neurons compared to a human brain, so it's a matter of individuals not entire species.
@@chrisriverata1917 yea you didn't read what I said correctly. I wasn't saying that the size of an elephants brain correlates to higher intelligence. They aren't smarter simply because they have big brains.. Duh lol. I'm saying that the very specific part of the brain that we know controls emotion (in very basic terms) is larger in elephants, proportionate to their size, than almost any other mammal. It's even larger than we would expect given the overall huge size of an elephants brain . Having a big brain in general of course doesn't equal higher intelligence. I feel like that should go without saying.
When I was very young, the circus came to town. Instead of taking us to school, my mom took us to watch the elephants put up the tents. She said to watch closely because they wouldn't be doing it in a few years. She was right, and even though I was so young, I will never forget. My mom was surprised to hear I remember that. I'm glad they don't do it anymore, but I feel lucky I got to see it. Elephants are amazing creatures
@@rexibhazoboa7097 They were putting up circus tents, but elephants, as most animals do, don't enjoy being circus animals, and usually people put animals through pretty unpleasant ordeals to get them to perform, so the practice has been discontinued.
As a kid, I remember my dad taking us to a circus, and during a break, we were actually able to ride an elephant. It feels wrong to look back at it fondly considering what I know now, but it was once in a lifetime experience, and I hoped the elephant got to retire peacefully.
1:24 “Elephants did just get less weird looking, we just got desensitized to looking at them” honestly another animal I feel like this also fits just as much as it does for Elephants… (if not possibly even more so, depending on who you ask.) Giraffes!
Another random interesting fact about elephants is that they don't sound as big and stompy when they walk as you'd think. Their padded feet muffle the sound when they walk. So they can walk almost silently despite their hugeness.
14:00 Outro person translation, " ah ah, come up. come up, come up. Up up..." "You dare, [I think it's the elephant name, unclear], I'll paint your nails huh."
@SilverStarStorm. Ive read that elephants think humans are cute. The same parts of the brain "light up" when they see us as when we see our dogs, cats, etc. :3 So the elephant was probably like ah cute human *pat pat* the way we do to our dogs/cats when walking past them. 😂
We rode elephants in Jaipur, India, on a school trip in the 80’s. My friend dropped his flute off the side, and not only did the elephant stop and grab it before being promoted, he handed (trucked??) it back to him without having seen who dropped it. Always love for the pachyderms. As much as I loved that experience, I hope they get a better future.
My classmates call me elephant because I’m fat. I didn’t like their name calling me elephant because that’s body shaming me. But when I started living with my mum, she also called me elephant. After my mum said that I started loving the name elephant and even encouraged her to say it on daily basis as my nickname. Later I started liking the animal elephant more. I love elephants now. The amount of fondness I have for elephants is insane.
It's always absurd to call bigger persons as elephants (and hippos) because those animals have minimal body fat. They're so large and live in so hot climates that any extra insulation will cook them alive.
I'm sorry that those people have ill intentions calling you elephant, but I am also very happy for you for having been able to reclaim the nickname in the best way possible. All the best, Elephant!
one of my favorite pages on YT. Great editing, and as a kid that grew up on animal planet I impatiently wait for the next one. Hope you have a great time at the sanctuary!
omg.. the painting the elephant made.. it shows a high level of awareness & intelligence potential. WoW, I'm stunned an elephant would even draw a realistic pictuee, not some random things on paper
To be fair, there's a good chance they were trained to paint that specific picture so it might just be more of a testament to their memory. Still wildly impressive tho
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases elephants are abused until they successfully paint what their owners want them to paint. It's wonderful that they have that ability, but the way it's brought on is sickening.
Still, there are a few in zoos who were just given paint, paper, and brushes to do as they pleased. They weren’t abused- it was just enrichment. Those ones’ paintings generally looked a bit more abstract though, so do with that what you will.
One of the things I witnessed in Amboseli National Park in Kenya that I will never forget is seeing an elephant wake. They were surrounding the dead elephant silently. They seemed to be contemplating and mourning, even the babies. It's hard to describe how poignant that moment felt.
Dolphins, crows, elephants... we live among more like-minded creatures than one might expect. Intelligent and emotional creatures capable of empathy and love. It's pretty heartwarming.
Very cool seeing Lawrence Anthony mentioned online. Thula Thula game reserve is just down the road from the farm I grew up on in Heatonville (the local community).
Elephants have always been my favorite animals. Such a perfect blend of immense strength, deep intelligence, raw endurance and welcoming compassion. There are some elephants who have the moral high ground over plenty of humans, and their natural role as keystone ecosystem builders is grounds enough for their continued existence making the world a better place. Long live the true jungle king!
I used to be briefly work as a research assistant for school at our zoo's elephant exhibit. The baby elephants absolutely love the pool, they're like actual kids lol
When I was a kid in kindergarten, my class took a field trip to the zoo, and we got to make our own hats for it (we painted on some wide-brimmed "explorer" hats). I was the only kid who had "I ❤ elephants" on my hat with a little elephant picture. I remember seeing an elephant for the first time and loving them so much. This helped me reconnect with that. Thank you. I hope the elephants visit you on the hill. ❤️ 🐘
As an Orca enjoyer, it's great to learn this much about elephants. I love intelligent animals, and it makes me fascinated. We're not alone in this universe, we have company. We're just so used to their presence, we just ignore them.
Platybelodon is one of my fave prehistoric animals, along with Helicoprion. Incredible that a giant herbivore with big fangs, a prehensile proboscis trumpet, big ears to hear you with, and mostly no hair can get weirder.
Apparently, elephants respond very predictably to moon phases, so they clearly know how long it’s been since they’ve last seen someone. I guess like a calendar 😅
fits with the Matriarch leading the herd to water in drought. "96 moons ago there was no water there, there or there, but still water here, lets go .. here". Having a mental calendar would help with that
They probably track time like ancient humans did, not with calendars but the the changing seasons and moon cycles. "The weather is cool, and the moon is full for the 12th time. The good human died this day."
That behavior where they're rocking back and forth or moving their head the same way over and over, means they are literally going insane from the boredom.
The way I see it, mourning is the best way to test an animal's intelligence. It means that they have more than basic sadness and understand that they won't see someone again if they die.
Giraffes too hold memorials for their dead that are attended by unrelated individuals and not just family. So it goes beyond sadness and understanding loss; there is reverence and respect to those that have "transitioned into the unknown" and makes for an interesting case study regarding the origin of human spirituality.
I think it would vary depending on the animal, though. Hymenopterans for example have proven to be pretty intelligent, but they're very pragmatic and probably don't have much time to form bonds with specific members of the colony. I guess that makes hauling numerous bodies off to the graveyard sites easier. They do have medics though, and they do get sad when isolated. So they still value their communities.
About 10 years ago, a pheasant decided it was going to adopt my family. It would accompany in the garden, knock at the back door for breakfast, and eventually introduced us to his wife. When, very sadly, his wife was taken by foxes (I heard the commotion, but was too late to save her), he 'mourned' on the steps by our back door for 2 days. It rained the whole time, this poor bird stood still, head lowered, so dejected. He would eat no food. I stood at the window crying, my husband crying, our son crying. It was awful. But that bird definitely mourned the loss of his wife.
Love your work man. In among all the joking judgments of animals and their traits, your love of all our non-human cousins really shines through. And of course when you put gags aside for a bit for a really sincere piece like this one, it's even more touching. Thanks for all you do and I hope you keep doing it a long time to come!
Ok, how in the world have I never seen elephant bangs before? Or an elephant tail? Or elephant boobs? Or elephants swimming? I feel mindblown. Amazing coverage, we really do take them for granted, they are so weird and yet so incredible. It's really sad how we've treated so many of our fellow creatures over time especially the ones that have that emotional edge to them, I'm grateful they're still around and don't absolutely hate all of us (yet), we're lucky to witness such things.
I think you've convinced me to make elephants one of my top favourite animals, and I never would have thought that before! This vid brought me to tears of awe...
You reminded me of my favorite elephant growing up, Ziggy at Brookfield Zoo. I knew as a child he should have never been in a zoo. I cried when he passed away, but he should have never been there, and before he passed when I would visit him, I always thought that moat was dangerous for him. RIP Ziggy.
Well, I don't know how but you guys did it. 150k and counting. Looks like I'm gonna be seeing elephants real soon....
I forget which one but there was a great elephant sanctuary in Chang Mai that took in a lot of ex-working elephants and lets international volunteers stay for a few days to a few weeks. You'll get time to help feed and wash the elephants but expect to do a lot of the boring jobs they actually need help with.
Time to pack those bags.
Time to pack your trunk
Pack your bags and head over to Cambodia to Elephant Valley Project. They have this conservation project where you'll be helping scientists and researchers in studying the life of Asian Elephants who used to thrive there. There will be no selfies and bathing elephants, but there will be opportunities to see elephants doing elephant things and all that.
The Elephant family tree just sounds like a family reunion where you have to play the guessing game of "Am I actually related to you, or where you just yoinked into this family and now I call you uncle?"
Grandma fed your friend once when he came over to hang out with you and your brother, you now have a second brother. Don't question the cookiemaker.😁
"She's not my real mom..."
"...but she did what mothers do."
Sounds like basically any indigenous culture I've come across tbh, the first thing anyone does when they meet is figure out how they're related lol.
Sounds like the Adams family when you put it that way. Lol
Funnily enough my mom's hometown is a similar situation where when you meet someone the question is "Ok I know I'm related to you, but how am I related to you?"
...
It was a VERY small town...
"Ill die on that hill, i just hope the elephants come visit it"..Well said my friend
_🐘_
Very well said
😵🪦🏔️🐘
Better make room for me on that hill
@@Indigo_Shard me too
Crazy how elephants got so many weird looking relatives, them being pretty weird looking too; and yet they earned so many people's hearts, mine included
Couldn't agree more also sup DouG
@Kittycute357 nuh uh
@@Preciousgold oh hey, been a while fam
Weird looking relatives like your mom?
Manatees are the best
Elephants running a sugar cane tax on literal trucks is one of the best animal facts I’ve heard in quite a while.
To be fair, they are also built like the trucks
It's a road tax. You build road through their home? You pay the toll.
Straight gangster lol
Tarrifs work. Lol
Elephant mafia running sugar cane Racket
Elephants have got to be one of the most unique mammals in history
@Kittycute357 this is the full video robot
What about the platypus?
And very intelligent.
nah your mom is more unique mammal
I always stand by the opinion that Elephants and Giraffes are some of the most unique animals on the planet and even in fiction. I feel like someone from the distant past would sooner believe in something like a Unicorn before an Elephant.
Fun fact: Up until the end of the Pleistocene there were members of the Elephant family on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, to the point where North America had 4 living on the same continent, The Wooly Mammoth, Colombian Mammoth, the American mastodon and Cuvieronius a species of Gompthothere. Yea they basically ruled the world before it changed too quickly for them to adapt.
Humans be too OP
@@MrAtrox98 Moreso Humans showed up at the worst possible time, especially since animals as large as Elephants were struggling with their world rapidly changing and unable to breed fast enough to break even, add a new apex predator who can even kill adults.. yea there’s a reason why they quickly became extinct.
@@smashers6971Considering that the Pleistocene experienced numerous climatic shifts, the idea that mammoths, mastodons, and other megafauna as a whole would’ve perished from climate change doesn’t have much to stand on. A warming and more humid climate 10,000 years would’ve in fact benefitted mastodons and gompotheres at the very least, as those proboscideans were adapted for forest and marsh habitat. Mammoths wouldn’t have done as well, but even the cold adapted wooly variety lived through five previous interglacials with little issue and were the last ones standing among their genus despite a shrinking habitat for them. Columbian mammoths would’ve done well on the Great Plains and surrounding open woodlands had they survived to the modern age.
The three surviving elephant species lived through the expansion of humans because hominid predators were nothing new to their ancestors.
cuvieronius dint lived on USA trough only in Southern Mexico and many parts of central America
the last species was completely tropical
also the fact that we lost soo many proboscideans makes my sad
Also they develop multiple island tiny species. Even few times on same island.
"Elephants be spelunking"
Is a phrase I never thought I'd hear, but I'm so glad I did.
Unintentionally horrifying scene.
You shine your light and suddenly ELEPHANTS
What’s even more wild is that they can’t jump. They cave crawl.
First the moose being able to dive 30 ft or meters underwater and now elephants in caves. Why?
@@kosutokiriguya3205 have you heard of goats climbing trees and sheer cliffs/walls?😂
All for that salt
Elephant are truly the definition of "Strong enough to be kind"
Saw an elephant video on Facebook where it turned a human into a folding chair. Made me kinda sick but like he said, they're still wild animals. I love Elephants though.
IIRC, isn't that from a quote by Peter Cullen, voice actor of Optimus Prime, when describing how his brother inspired him how to play the character back in the 80s?
Definitely, a beast form for Optimus Prime should be an elephant.
@@hasnaindev Well you never know, maybe the human was a prick.
Elephants are human smart. My brother worked for Barnum and Bailey's circus in the early 70's and he told me about a wrangler who was abusive to the elephants. One day he was putting them in their train car and two females blocked the exits and then another leaned on him until he was erased. My brother totally believed with all his heart that they planned it.
The simple fact of it being premeditated is terrifying to me
They were so real for that tho. Deserved.
Not human smart, but planning a murder is wild
@@Epicvibes999 more like elaborate self defense no other way they can stop him for good
I obviously value human life more than animal life, but the instances when circus elephants have gone on rampages, yeah, good on them
I think the biggest flex of elephant intelligence is the fact that they’re clearly able to understand that not every human is a threat, but some definitely are, and so they clearly use their intelligence to differentiate on a case by case basis.
That's more than you can say for a lot of humans, lmao.
@@whitewall2253funnily enough yeah
@@whitewall2253 To be fair, there's a lot of factors for us human to consider one-another a threat(and other things). All elephants need to figure out is if a human harbours a malicious intent, doesn't care, finds them amusing and playful, or that they harbour positive and helpful intent. Although that is no feat to laugh around since we can't even do that much.
Except when they are going through Musth
Nature doesn’t create something accidentally
Everything is predestined by allah
Stepped on his own trunk-- I never even considered that possible.
Ever thought about how often your eye gets in the way of things? i.e. walking into a stick...
I don't consider myself to be much of a klutz most of the time. I never drop things accidentally, have good hand/eye coordination etc, but I have this one area of my house where I have to twist my hips a bit before stepping down the single step there because I have a big wooden chest on the floor and thanks to that, I've not only stepped on my own feet/ankles more than a few times, but stumbling has caused me to break two toes and one bone in my foot over the years because of it. Nevermind me relating to stepping on my own body parts---I guess there's something to be said that I have intelligence and trip over it by just not bothering to use it to move the damn chest, too! 😵💫💀
Just wait till you hear about zippers
@@MekarWB ...Lol
I do it all the time
Elephants are so real they come through to pay their respects to another real one. We should all be so lucky to have friends like that.
Nature doesn’t create something accidentally
Everything is predestined by allah
You forgot one thing, elephants understand MUSIC! There's a video of a pianist playing the piano for some elephants and they actually bob their heads to the rhythm.
Ok that's very cool elephants are such amazing and interesting to the point they understand music like us! Their always gonna be interesting,
lol that's nothing there's a video of them dancing to a didgeridoo
This made me think of the fact that ivory is sometimes used to make piano keys and ivory comes from elephant tusks.
No doubt they'd love the tunes this man uses in the background. I've heard a lot from Runescape, and other classic game tracks. All great when I notice
@@daforkgaming3320damn
Visiting Kenya, one of the tour operators told of about 15 years earlier when she was alone on a small property suffering with malaria with her months old baby who would not stop crying. She went out and walked around and around the cabin trying to calm the baby and her own feverishness for what felt like 2 or 3 hours. She did not notice that night had fallen and it was pitch black. She thought she had better go inside. This was when she discovered she was completely surrounded by elephants who had probably been there for quite a while. She was freaked but was able to make her way back inside no problem. In my view, a family herd like that one, full of mothers, would have heard the crying baby and known exactly what the mother was doing and probably knew that she was sick. IMO they surrounded her, just like they do their own vulnerable members, to protect her from predators. Once she was back inside they melted back into the bush. When this video reaches 100k views, please go to the Ithumba elephant rewilding unit of the Sheldrick Trust in Tsavo. It will change your relationship not only to elephants but also to the planet. I was there for 3 days and wanted to stay forever. Say high to Yatta and to my lovely foster no-longer-a-baby, Lemoyian, for me.
Sheldrick Trust does incredible work with elephants!
Hey can you put some more details about this place it sounds amazing
Sheldrick is awesome! Check out HERD Elephant Orphanage in South Africa too. I have learned so much from their videos, and they do so much for local communities, yet they are tiny!
Tsavo is where The Ghost & The Darkness took place. No way I'd ever go there.
What a beautiful story
That story about Lawrence and the elephant's visiting to pay respect for their late saviour is one of the sweetest things ever, enough to put tears on my eyes, it's so beautiful
My only question is how he managed to figure out how to get the elephants to understand him. The guy in the video did say that elephants understand that men are more likely to be dangerous so...🤷♂️ also I don't mean that in any ideological way just to clarify.
@@RClipsGaming101he was talking about a specific herd that learned the difference between the language of tribes that didn't hunt them vs the tribe that did
The baby elephant palling around with his human friend at the end was so sweet omg 🥹
I'm from Detroit and i remember when our zoo sent our elephants to a sanctuary because they needed more space. The zoo tried to buy the golf course next to it, but they refused to sell. It was bitter sweet, because the original elephants helped build the zoo a hundred years ago, and as kids you'd follow the elephant foot prints to get to their enclosure, but the Detroit zoo has always been a put animals first place (some enclosures are so big you almost never see the animals), and everyone knew it was what was best for the elephants.
Tbh I be walking around appreciating the zoo's efforts to do the best for their animals until I finally find the animal and I just start to appreciate and admire the animal that I was here to see (but tbh why would they let the visitors go into the animal enclosures that would be dangerous)
@AzarianaSaurusthetimberwolf I love that our zoo doesn't keep our animals in cages and that most are rescues (like our 3 grizzly brothers. Their mother was killed. They were too young to survive alone, so they were sent across the country to our zoo) or are for conservation. I'd much rather have a leisurely stroll through a place looking at lovely gardens, statues, and interesting habitats and occasionally seeing happy animals then for sure seeing animals in cages like at some zoos.
Like I've never seen the wolves for example. My sister has a few times, but they've never been out while I'm there, and I'm OK with that.
@@MagdalenasfearsI took my kids to the zoo last week and I saw the wolves for the first time ever. I think I was more excited than them 😂
The Kansas City zoo have the same problem, their Savannah area is so huge you never saw anything! But they do crazy things like keep the kangaroos out. You can literally just walk up to a kangaroo and touch it. But they're small, they're not the big muscular ones you see on videos LOL. Our zoo kind of sucks, but it's getting better. At least they take care of the animals.
@manichispanic5234 lol you can walk through the kangaroo enclosure at the Detroit zoo too. You have to stay on the path, but they're free roaming in there. The butterfly house and bird aviary are the same. IDK why they let people hangout with kangaroos...I guess they're kinda Australia's version of deer lol
13:32 “ He was never socialized around other elephants early on, just humans. That's a miserable way to live _for anyone_ ”
Nice emphasis.
I was never socialized around elephants either 😢
True
@@dovesr0478same, such a shame we raise our kids this way 😔 /hj
@@dovesr0478This is why the roman empire fell
9:10 the most effective fence against elephants is a wire fence, but with beehives every 30ish feet. Elephants are so leery of bees that they supposedly even have a specific alarm call for angry bees.
I love that tumblr post that wondered why humans don't have a specific sound for "there are bees nearby let's leave immediately" without realizing that is the specific sound
That or a shallow ditch as elephants can’t jump… there’s a joke in there somewhere.
@@RebatDialga Nah, we tend to the slightly more efficient "AAAAAAAHHHHHH! BEEEEEEEEESSSS!" or variants thereof.
@RebetDialga
I mean for us it’s “owe #### something just stung me!”
Peppers work too. They gotta be really hot though. Crush them into a paste and spread along the fence, keeps elephants away. Got do it every so often though
I think my favourite thing about elephants is that they like the sound of human laughter, which is why they often clown around humans.
Wait would this somewhat prove that elephants see humans as we see puppies? Ie "cute"??🧐🤔
@@BlakeWilder-n1uI like that, I'll try to remember it
The elephants stepping off the mat and recognizing themselves in a mirror is really impressive. Humans only learn to do that at around 18 months or so
i’m sure that young elephants also dont realize it immediately but it is a really rare skill in animals
Surely it's more impressive that 18 month old humans can match full-grown elephants on this?
I think the only reason that elephants aren’t the dominant species of the world is because they already were, they were just too well adapted to have a need for shelters or a large scale community or adaptation such as fire or migration.
They were just so well off they simply had already reached the peak, and didn’t need anything more
@@alexpollard1941 well, since humans are slowly killing them off, shouldn't they be evolving to take us down?
Basic waterhole tech. Elephants know this.
Still cute when elephants sense a new baby so they're just jogging over excited to see it
That's adorable omg 😭
Agreed. It’s another reason I respect the Detroit Zoo. In 2005 it was the first zoo in the country to transfer its elephants to an elephant sanctuary. Thats not even the best part. The best part is, the decision was made based on the ethical treatment of the animal. Not finances, not press/marketing…
A sanctuary is nicer in what way exactly? I mean I don’t know the situation exactly, but was the issue that the elephant was poorly adjusted to human presence or the zoo was lacking adequate space?
I’m certain there were good reasons, but I’m mostly asking because sanctuaries really aren’t automatically better than zoo's. Zoo's have expectations and laws placed on them written in past blood, sanctuaries don't even seem to have strict legal definitions sometimes.
@@No-longer1 Here in TN the Sanctuary is large, has a herd of elephants and they aren't forced to be in front of humans. They put up cameras to help promote and get funding. I looked into volunteering and you do not do anything with them, you are doing chores around the place.
@@No-longer1Good sanctuaries are there for the animals - they do their best to let them have their natural behaviors and social bonds, take care of them medically if needed, and otherwise leave them alone. They're not designed to put animals on display for human benefit like zoos are. For elephants especially, the best sanctuaries have large acreage that allows the elephants to roam and graze freely, go indoors to their barn or outdoors as they see fit, and have company in the form of other sanctuary elephants. Check out the Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary - they do good work. There's also one in California, I believe.
Sanctuaries are essentially massive swaths of land that you can probably shoot poachers on site if you catch them within the premises. @@No-longer1
@@No-longer1 Sanctuaries (a good one at least) puts the needs of the animal first. Zoos often have other needs to worry about, like letting people view the animal or attracting visitors. Sanctuaries can also be more specialized and give more space to the animals. Elephants need a lot of room to roam, and an acre or two doesn't really cut it. Sanctuaries can provide the space, enrichment, and socialization that some zoos cannot provide.
Keep in mind too that the good zoos we tend to look up to are not the majority. Most zoos are small, roadside locations that sometimes struggle to even meet the minimum requirements of care. A zoo is not somehow magically better just because it puts the word zoo in it's name, just like how a sanctuary isn't inherently better because it has the word sanctuary in there. It's all about the care of the animals.
Personally I'd also like to see better laws surrounding wildlife care. In the U.S. the minimum standards of care haven't been updated since the freaking 80's. The minimum for a pool enclosure for an orca must be at least twelve feet deep and forty-eight feet across horizontally. Think about that. Twelve feet deep? Most Orca grow longer than that.
The babies with the bangs 😭❤️
even elephants go thru emu phase 😂
@@me_12-vw1vi My Chemical Watering Hole
Man, I remember back when I visited my friend in a village near Way Kambas National Park. There was a herd of elephant walking near the villager's rice field. And one guy shouted "Please don't go there, we just planted them." One of them just nod at him like "aight, bruh."
There is also a certain part of the rice field in that village that's used for papaya, banana, and sugarcanes for the elephants so they doesn't destroy the rice fields. The people did that because scaring them actually did more harm and cost more money so they did that. Dude, idk they're chill like that.
I was working in Central India about ten years ago. During the harvest season, the villagers would hold night vigils to keep the elephant herds away from their paddy. They used to use fireworks to change the direction of the herd (probably because elephants have such sensitive ears). Well, one time they stampeded right into the edge of a village where there were straw and wood huts. THe adults managed to skeddadle but there was an infant who was in a cradle, on top of which the beams and thatch collapsed. Inspite of the fireworks and the noise the people were making, the matriarch stuck around long enough to lift the beams and thatch off the the cradle/cot and gingerly pick the baby up and set it down in the courtyard before leaving! Since then, the people in the village use means like keeping some food for the herds aside as a means of keeping them off the crop! They even built them a new watering hole!
Glad to hear humans have learned sth from this experience!
Beautiful story btw, tx for sharing! ❤❤❤
Cutest thing I read today, thanks for sharing!
Son, when you were a baby they saved you so we love them instead of fear them now. ❤
Nature doesn’t create something accidentally
Everything is predestined by allah
That sounds a lot like the plot of How to train your Dragon 2 and I love it 🤣
Another fun fact is that elephants will wave sticks at different moon phases like some sort of religios ritual
Nah broz thats wild hahahahaha
Elephants getting ready to throw hands with artemis
@@germanscience7246 YES!
BB😂❤
also they do ritual fulll moon baths!! like mystics since ancient times. elephants are wonderful and sacred.
so grateful i got to grow up in the african bush. nothing quiet like seeing these animals relaxed in their element.
Elephants are my favorite animal, period. I love how intelligent they are. Not just great memories, but they have such stong family bonds, show empathy better than some humans, are so self aware, and even mourn the dead. It's incredible how like us they are mentally. All the more reason to protect this beautiful animal.
Agreed. They they really are a better version of humans.
Their minds are more complex than I could've imagined.
Truly remarkable creatures.
My favorite animals are bats, but my dad's favorites are elephants so I've long respected them by default. Both animals are compassionate, social, and full of crazy powers!
Now imagine something with both hand-wings and a prehensile snake nose... would that be an eat?
Orcas gotta be my favorite for all the same reasons you just mentioned, plus they're just ridiculously overpowered.
For me, one of the craziest Elephant stories I ever heard was of one that got shot and actively sought out people to help it.
If memory serves right, there was an Elephant that survived getting shot in the forehead and journeyed to a ranger center to get treatment. The staff tranquilized it and did their work but were curious as to where this Elephant came from as this wasn't one that they had raised and released back into the wild. They followed it back to its herd and among the other Elephants was one that had been raised in the center.
The idea that an Elephant got hurt and was told by another Elephant to go to this location for help says so much about their intelligence.
Wack.
That vet was thinking: “wait, how did you get here?”
The elephant: I heard it through the grapevine.
@@TimeCircleBlue"so i heard this story from an orphan in the neighborhood"
When humans are gone, the Earth will either be inherited by apes or elephants. They're just too smart.
@@kira-dk2mx You forget Corvids
@@anotherdayanotheranimation Corvid-Elephant Alliance. I don't want those stinkin' apes to take over after we're gone.
"They don't belong in captivity."
You just reminded me of the lonely Mali the Elephant who was alone for most of her life in Manila Zoo. She died back in October, but at least she's free from loneliness now.
Dang...
This is genuinely a tough issue though especially for Asian elephants. The asian elephants are genuinely in danger of extinction in the wild, and the captive ones are important for the genetic health of the species. Also captive elephants are have been part of many of those cultures for thousands of years. However, at the same time they methods of training and socializing domestic/ captive elephants in Asia are often far crueler than they should be or need to be.
@@flyingeagle3898 I would call into question the importance of captive elephants and their genetics. There has never been a zoo with a program where they release captive born elephants into the wild, but plenty that have taken wild born elephants into captivity. There's also serious concern about how well they thrive in captive environments, as more captive elephants die than are born. Basically, without a consistent supply of wild elephants the captive population is not sustainable, and that includes North America.
@@dragongirl89115 yea it makes no sense to charge people to see a single elephant for "research" in a country it's not even native. It makes sense that the elephant is more profitable that way and easier than fixing the problem where it is. I'd rather take war $$ and help the elephants with our tax paid foreign "aid." 🐘
@dragongirl89115 I think releasing captive born animals into the wild would be comparable to releasing city raised people into the country.
They have shelter, food, usually peers. So it would be a culture shock! They'd need to find things they have not been raised to do.
100/10 video. Learned a lotta new stuff.
Fun fact about elephants in the jungle. Their imprints create the tiniest of puddles, that when filled with water create safe havens for small fish to hatch and grow. They get to the next river by hopping from puddle to puddle. If that's not adorable, I don't know what is. 🐘
I had the pleasure to visit an Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand last winter and I have to say, they're truly amazing and intelligent beasts. The way they were open to socializing with us, getting fed by us, and getting bathed by us is flabbergasting even compared to humans. Every elephant deserves an incredible life.
Sounds amazing honestly, which one was it?
@@mndiaye_97 I don't exactly remember but I know it was in Chiang Mai.
@@mndiaye_97 probably the one that the wizard of paws went to. That's a great show btw
14:11 I find it amazing how elephants can just casually rear up on their hind legs and not have their back legs instantly buckle under their weight.
Ehhh... kinda straining it really. They can't jump. Too heavy.
Fun fact: elephants might be the only other species on earth that cries emotional tears.
Tears of hornynes 😂
I'm pretty sure I've seen cows being tortured and killed have tears in their eyes. Also when their babies are snatched from them by the dairy industry.
@@earthling_parthyeah no you havent. they simply do not have the capability to feel that because they do not recognize what it is. Bulls will literally kill calves if they think it aint theres or its in their way. have you not seen CG's other stuff?
and that bury their dead too,
for real they bury their babies
@@earthling_partha lot of animals will just have tears in their eyes at most times. It’s probably not because they’re sad.
I just wanted to stop by and say that I love seeing your videos come up in my timeline man.
So much of the stuff every week all look these days is also damn dark and negative, that it’s really a little moment of joy when I get to just chill and watch one of these.
Despite the casual aesthetic your relentless positivity and clear love for all of these animals always makes the day a little better man.
Never change, dude!
Good news girl is also good for this. Lots of feel good stories about animals a lot of the time and she also has some subtle plays on words that are cute. Not as many as here, but still fun.
It is insane to me how keen the elephants sense of time is. Returning three exact anniversaries in a row is something humans took millennia to figure out
and you can argue that even we are not that good at it, since we need a calendar to help us know the exact day in the year
To be fair, it took elephants millions of years to get that sense of time. Humans have a tendency to speed run what took other animals millions to billions of years in under a couple thousands of years. 😉
@@herrfantastisch7489 Fair point.
@@bdoglance Actually you could argue that that might be an example of our intelligence since we developed a way for us to compensate for our lack of such a strong memory.
I'm not a cynic, but I find it extremely difficult to believe they returned for anniversaries. Elephants are very well attuned to the passing of time and seasons, but the 365 day calendar is a human concept, one that is simply out of reach of an elephant's understanding.
debunked
Your description of various part of elephant reminded me of story in India
A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.
From here it has two version
One where they conclude that they each must have perceived a different beast although they experienced the same elephant.
Other they start fighting each other since one thing other is lying untill a sage come and explain this.
Now that I think about it Describing Animal like Elephant and Giraffe to someone who doesn't know them must be hard
The moral of the story is that Subjective experience can be true, but that such experience is inherently limited by its failure to account for other truths or a totality of truth. Or that truth isn't limited to one person
I love that story and have used it. I think that's the story Mamadou was referring to when he mentioned Helen Keller.
Yeah I've seen a supposedly old depiction of a giraffe based on description. It shows a weird looking bear-antelope thing with a snake head and neck.
The blind men and the elephant was one of my most cherished books growing up.
@@themockingdragon135 funny thing is In 1414, a giraffe-a creature unknown in China at the time-was presented to the Yongle emperor (r. 1403-24) from the king of Bengal, which was a major trading center on the maritime route between the Arabian Peninsula and China. The Chinese immediately associated it with the qilin, an auspicious mythical creature. Since it was so bizarre to them Qilin generally has Chinese Dragon-like features: similar heads with antlers eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards. The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse, or more commonly a goat.
Even the Japanese name of the giraffe is kirin the Japanese name of Qilin.
There is also a theory that Greeks called Indian rhinoceros unicorns which later became horses with one horn ( also Rhino are related to horses so...)
And many dinosaur fossils were probably called dragon bone
World is fascinating isn't it
Thanks for sharing!
Baby elephants sucking their trunks the way our babies such their thumbs is too freaking adorable
And swinging it around like .........
I love how they haven't developed trunk muscles yet so they look all derpy.
That's also interesting cause it suggests it's convergent evolution, learning to use a prehensile organ being down by getting a feel for it in a way that's safe.
The fact that I watched this whole thing not even intending to watch it fully shows how interesting this guys content is… Not to mention how amazing these animals are
My Grandpa LOVED elephants. When he was around them his nature was so pure. They’re the most beautiful beast
My Grandpa loves elephants too. Amazing animals.
I swear the myth of the cyclops came from past people finding elephant skulls..
It makes sense
That's why the Greeks thought Sicily was the island of the Cyclopes. All the dwarf elephant skulls
it actually most likely did
It was proven to be the case tho
What do u mean, u obviously know that's a fact
I read an article about a Thai log yard in the 1890s. One of the rules was that if an employee offended an elephant he was immediately sacked - for his own safety. The elephant would not forget and sooner or later it would get the offending employee into a position where it could kill him.
5:17 Aww, look at that elephant running away from the baby buffalo to not trample it. It brought a tear to my eye. The mom's in the back running behind the baby screaming "You're gonna die idiot!"
I love how the elephant knows how big and dangerous and moving back
@@Bobobob964 I know right! It's so endearing to watch 😍
I believe this is how the myth about elephants being "scared" of mice came about. They aren't scared, they are just trying to be careful around those super tiny critters 🥺
@@charityquill4965and because they might not be able to see them, but smell and hear them so that could’ve spooked those that haven’t seen a mouse before
i unironically started to tear up when you told the story of Lawrence Anthony. Genuinely heartbreaking that they mourned him, I knew elephants were incredibly intelligent and social creatures but to that extent i had no idea. Mad respect for our trunky brothers.
Man, imagine being him. What a guy.
Me too! Inwonder how they know when the aniversary is.
To show up on the exact date of his death they'd have to accurately keep track of the 365 days in a year using nothing but their minds. I don't know if most humans are capable of that.
Ye thanks to them they used to make a very good clothes and delcious meat
Nature doesn’t create something accidentally
Everything is predestined by allah
Elephants having fun with humans just gets me in the feels.
Never forget that humans have played music for elephants and they’ve seemed to react well to it.
That last clip of the calf wanting to play was absolutely adorable as hell!! 🥰
So cute how the calf climbed up on the fence in order to get a better angle.
8:48 Considering there are at least 14 elephants on the planet right now that actively dabble in painting, some of which can actually produce comprehensible results (which is something not even chimpanzees can say), they're not far off from being able to watch Rick and Morty.
I heard some of those elephants were tortured, possibly all of them...
@jacobwiren8142 tortured into painting?
Someone better curate the episodes...
XD
@@derpstick5467 I heard that the elephants were trained to paint to attract tourists (they were also selling the paintings), and the trainers used some "interesting" methods to do it.
That they can paint probably makes them smarter than the average Rick and Morty fan
(Says the former Rick and Morty fan)
There are stories of elephants understanding people, in Malay communities as recently as a couple generations ago, when elephants were still part of regular life. For example, a domestic elephant (born domestic, child of a domesticated elephant) was moved to a rehabilitation centre in another state, because the country is modernising and people no longer kept elephants. Its past owner’s grandson traveled there at one point and decided to visit. He called out to the elephant herd at the centre, asking if the children of so-and-so (the elephant’s name with his family) who belonged to the family of so-and-so (his grandfather) would step out to see him. And amazingly, a few elephants did.
I went to an elephant sanctuary here in Thailand once, and they got a newly rescued baby and mom. I was a little kid and stupid and my parents weren't supervising me, and I stand a little too close to their pen, and the baby used its trunk to yank my hair. The mommy elephant come running to stop her baby by gently kicking it, pushing it away. Thinking back on it, the elephant parent did better job at watching their kid than mine did at that moment lol.
Elephants are so incredible. I love getting updates from Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where they rescue injured and orphaned elephants (and other animals) and reintroduce them into the wild. Every elephant has such a distinct personality, and the orphans that have grown up will still visit after giving birth to introduce their wild-born babies to their "human family".
Even fully-wild bulls will show up at their gates when injured because they know that *those* humans will help them, even when *other* humans caused their injuries. Truly remarkable animals who deserve our care and respect.
One of my favorite elephant stores is that during the filming of Prehistoric Park, there was a plot line where Martha the Mammoth, needed to be introduced to a heard of elephants for her own mental health, and so the crew had this huge animatronic puppet that they were using as a stand-in…and as they were filming, the matriarch of the heard walked over and ACTUALLY accepted the animatronic (I don’t know what their plan was if that didn’t happen, but I think it’s cool that it did)
I'm always in awe of how merciful elephants and whales are as species with vastly more physical strength than we can really imagine. Despite our species viciously decimating them, they don't hold a permanent grudge, and to me that's humbling
We’re lucky they are intelligent enough to understand that some bad people don’t make the entire species bad and that they can tell people apart.
There's a fantastic science-fiction book that I read a long time ago about whales that *sort of* hold a grudge. It's a fascinating read if you like cetaceans. It's called 'Cachalot' by Alan Dean Foster, if you're interested.
They hold grudges against some people and animals. Humpback whales will go out of their way to mess up orca hunts. Some believe it’s because orcas sometimes kill humpback calves, which take years to gestate. Elephants that have encountered poaching can have grudges against humans. Occasionally, poachers get trampled by elephants and then eaten by lions.
Bros sense of humor really be getting me through some rough days
You’ve got to visit the elephant sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. I went there for a service trip at the end of high school and got to prepare food for and hand feed elephants. Trust me when I say, there is nothing like the feeling of an elephant’s trunk taking watermelon out of your hand. We were there for 10 days and there’s far too much to tell for a TH-cam comment, but we also got to build a check dam to create a watering hole for the local elephants on the reservation.
You are so lucky! Thank you for sharing that. I'm too ill to travel anymore, so I can't go, but you wrote it so vividly that it was quite the emotional impact to read it.
I mean, elephants were already my fav animal, but hearing about their sugarcane racketeering road tolls elevates them to another plateau lmao 😂
Elephant highwaymen.
I remember working at a zoo with the elephants, and one of them was a blind rescue from another zoo. Despite not being able to see me he could always differentiate me from the other zoo keepers and would greet me with a pat on the head. ❤
This video has to be the most wholesome thing I've watched in a while
This is a tear jerker because my mother's favorite animal is the elephant BECAUSE of their innate ability to have the sense of self awareness and love for their fellow species and their intelligence. Love your work man, I'll gladly share this with my mother
Appreciate you man, tell your mom I said hi 👋🏿
I always bawl at the story of Lawrence Anthony, the Elephant Whisperer. The relationship he had with the herd gave me my daily dose of serotonin today.
One possible explanation for them knowing about that dead conservationist, is that they sort of keep a calendar. Apparently, elephants respond very predictably to moon phases, so they clearly know how long it's been since they've last seen someone.
I also read this one tidbit about how they observed one herd do weird trunk-waving at the moon that nobody could really explain. They figured it was about scent tracking on the wind or something, but one suggestion was that it was social behaviour celebrating the moon phases... which would mean they have proto-religion.
... I really hope they dive into that, because I desperately want to know about elephant moon cults
Elephants are my favorite animal, but what I say about them to others is always this: They are worthy of our admiration, respect, and fear. Admiration due to their beauty, respect due to their strength, altruism and intelligence, and fear due to their nature as wild animals, and in turn what they’re capable of when enraged.
They’re majestic beasts. Thanks for making this video.
This video was dope. Another thing that Casual touched on but I wanted to elaborate is that elephants are the most emotionally complex animals that we know of. They process emotion and feelings at a much deeper and complex level compared to us humans. They can get PTSD and depression and true anxiety. They can love and be empathetic and show longing. We know this because the portion of the brain that controls emotions and feeling in elephants is so disproportionately large compared to what you'd see in other highly intelligent animals. Even for a brain the size of an elephants, the "emotional" part of their brains is still huge. They are processing and experiencing events around them in an entirely different way than we can probably even comprehend honestly. We are only JUST now truly unraveling the complexity of elephant emotions and intelligence. It's really crazy and makes you truly start to feel like us humans aren't as unique as we like to think we are.
The size of a brain doesn't correlate to a higher function, For various reasons-some scientific, some philosophical, some religious, some economic we have set the bar exceedingly high for recognizing emotions (other than anger and fear) in other animals. Saying absolutely that elephants (or other animals) are more empathetic requires an experiment, something that is difficult to do in the wild. The cerebral cortex of an elephant has about one-third of the number of neurons compared to a human brain, so it's a matter of individuals not entire species.
@@chrisriverata1917 yea you didn't read what I said correctly. I wasn't saying that the size of an elephants brain correlates to higher intelligence. They aren't smarter simply because they have big brains.. Duh lol. I'm saying that the very specific part of the brain that we know controls emotion (in very basic terms) is larger in elephants, proportionate to their size, than almost any other mammal. It's even larger than we would expect given the overall huge size of an elephants brain . Having a big brain in general of course doesn't equal higher intelligence. I feel like that should go without saying.
Elephants truly are nature's masterpiece - a weird, wonderful mix of intelligence, strength, and beauty! 🐘💖
When I was very young, the circus came to town. Instead of taking us to school, my mom took us to watch the elephants put up the tents. She said to watch closely because they wouldn't be doing it in a few years. She was right, and even though I was so young, I will never forget. My mom was surprised to hear I remember that. I'm glad they don't do it anymore, but I feel lucky I got to see it. Elephants are amazing creatures
Wow, didn't know Dumbo was being accurate with the elephants pitching the tents!
Forgive me, i dont get it. Why arent they putting up tents anymore? What tents where they putting up?
@@rexibhazoboa7097 They were putting up circus tents, but elephants, as most animals do, don't enjoy being circus animals, and usually people put animals through pretty unpleasant ordeals to get them to perform, so the practice has been discontinued.
As a kid, I remember my dad taking us to a circus, and during a break, we were actually able to ride an elephant.
It feels wrong to look back at it fondly considering what I know now, but it was once in a lifetime experience, and I hoped the elephant got to retire peacefully.
1:24 “Elephants did just get less weird looking, we just got desensitized to looking at them” honestly another animal I feel like this also fits just as much as it does for Elephants… (if not possibly even more so, depending on who you ask.) Giraffes!
Another random interesting fact about elephants is that they don't sound as big and stompy when they walk as you'd think.
Their padded feet muffle the sound when they walk. So they can walk almost silently despite their hugeness.
Elephants are Ninja
@TonyMarselle Teenage Mutant Ninja Elephants to be precise
T-rex was thought to have had padded feet as well
So an elephant can sneak up on you.
Finally talking about the elephant in the room.
Ayyyy!!!😁
que puto, me hizo reir con esa mierda de chiste
FACTS! 😂 Of course, if there's literally an elephant in the room, I hope it's a big a$$ room with no doors I gotta open! 😱
Nature doesn’t create something accidentally
Everything is predestined by allah
@@cyberWarrior7519allah deez nuts
14:00 Outro person translation,
" ah ah, come up. come up, come up. Up up..."
"You dare, [I think it's the elephant name, unclear], I'll paint your nails huh."
dat outro izz sooaa cwuuuuuute 😍😍😍
bruv did not want his nails paint
Funny how the elephant came up just to pet the guy and left :p
@SilverStarStorm. Ive read that elephants think humans are cute. The same parts of the brain "light up" when they see us as when we see our dogs, cats, etc. :3
So the elephant was probably like ah cute human *pat pat* the way we do to our dogs/cats when walking past them. 😂
@@bleepbloop404 I don't know. In one of his videos, Casual Geographic said that that might not be the case.
3:54 that elephant be zesty with it💀
10:25- fun fact- this test was also performed on toddlers to see what age they understood spacial/self awareness. I think the age was about 18 months.
Don't gorillas?
No, gorillas fail the test. @@bubblingbubztheklown5902
We rode elephants in Jaipur, India, on a school trip in the 80’s. My friend dropped his flute off the side, and not only did the elephant stop and grab it before being promoted, he handed (trucked??) it back to him without having seen who dropped it.
Always love for the pachyderms. As much as I loved that experience, I hope they get a better future.
now I just picture an elephant trying to drive a ford f150 truck down a highway with it's trunk while standing in the bed
My classmates call me elephant because I’m fat. I didn’t like their name calling me elephant because that’s body shaming me. But when I started living with my mum, she also called me elephant. After my mum said that I started loving the name elephant and even encouraged her to say it on daily basis as my nickname. Later I started liking the animal elephant more. I love elephants now. The amount of fondness I have for elephants is insane.
You go, little dude/dudette.
Don't let those jerks bring you down!! Elephants are the most GOAT of all mammals! 🐘
It's always absurd to call bigger persons as elephants (and hippos) because those animals have minimal body fat. They're so large and live in so hot climates that any extra insulation will cook them alive.
I'm sorry that those people have ill intentions calling you elephant, but I am also very happy for you for having been able to reclaim the nickname in the best way possible. All the best, Elephant!
Offensive to elephants. They’re not fat.
I was expecting this to go in a direction where you get back at your classmates years later somehow and exclaim, "Elephants never forget".
one of my favorite pages on YT. Great editing, and as a kid that grew up on animal planet I impatiently wait for the next one. Hope you have a great time at the sanctuary!
omg.. the painting the elephant made.. it shows a high level of awareness & intelligence potential. WoW, I'm stunned an elephant would even draw a realistic pictuee, not some random things on paper
To be fair, there's a good chance they were trained to paint that specific picture so it might just be more of a testament to their memory. Still wildly impressive tho
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases elephants are abused until they successfully paint what their owners want them to paint. It's wonderful that they have that ability, but the way it's brought on is sickening.
@@LoinkLoink oh no...🥺🥺 i feel so bad for them now... Human beings... SMH..
Still, there are a few in zoos who were just given paint, paper, and brushes to do as they pleased. They weren’t abused- it was just enrichment. Those ones’ paintings generally looked a bit more abstract though, so do with that what you will.
@@teddy-beargamer6385 thank God for those zoos!
One of the things I witnessed in Amboseli National Park in Kenya that I will never forget is seeing an elephant wake. They were surrounding the dead elephant silently. They seemed to be contemplating and mourning, even the babies. It's hard to describe how poignant that moment felt.
Elephants are LITERALLY a fantasy animal!!!
They are 10ft tall, weigh in TONs, Have a snake for a nose, And have Swords for teeth!!!! Cmon😂 0:15
Now that i realize your right!!
Dolphins, crows, elephants... we live among more like-minded creatures than one might expect. Intelligent and emotional creatures capable of empathy and love. It's pretty heartwarming.
i must be getting old. that bit about them mourning the dead got me misty-eyed.... the ending clip was beyond cute, too
1:02
Me: wtf is wrong with that Elephants leg?
1:03
Me: ...Oh... that ain't his leg...
😬😬😬
Lmmfao look ma, that elephant has 5 legs
Mom: *covers her kids eyes*
Whoa my gosh that a humongous Australian hotdog 🤯
Elephants actually often use this "leg" as a support when trying to reach the leaves on trees that are so high, they need to stand on their hind legs.
I’ve seen that in real life before lol
the "hill i'll die on" and "hope they'll visit me" line got me good.
love your writing, great video as always.
Very cool seeing Lawrence Anthony mentioned online. Thula Thula game reserve is just down the road from the farm I grew up on in Heatonville (the local community).
Your love for them is infectious. I wasn't aware of all those abilities of theirs. Perhaps one day we can let them have their planet back.
Elephants have always been my favorite animals. Such a perfect blend of immense strength, deep intelligence, raw endurance and welcoming compassion. There are some elephants who have the moral high ground over plenty of humans, and their natural role as keystone ecosystem builders is grounds enough for their continued existence making the world a better place. Long live the true jungle king!
I used to be briefly work as a research assistant for school at our zoo's elephant exhibit. The baby elephants absolutely love the pool, they're like actual kids lol
Your channel made realize how much i love elephants, thank you for the new favorite animal. The most versatile, massive, and gentle of beasts
When I was a kid in kindergarten, my class took a field trip to the zoo, and we got to make our own hats for it (we painted on some wide-brimmed "explorer" hats). I was the only kid who had "I ❤ elephants" on my hat with a little elephant picture. I remember seeing an elephant for the first time and loving them so much. This helped me reconnect with that. Thank you. I hope the elephants visit you on the hill. ❤️ 🐘
As an Orca enjoyer, it's great to learn this much about elephants.
I love intelligent animals, and it makes me fascinated.
We're not alone in this universe, we have company.
We're just so used to their presence, we just ignore them.
Or told to ignor them.
Dude - easily your best video. It’s clear how much love you have for these animals. Your video made my day. Keep doing what you do
Platybelodon is one of my fave prehistoric animals, along with Helicoprion. Incredible that a giant herbivore with big fangs, a prehensile proboscis trumpet, big ears to hear you with, and mostly no hair can get weirder.
Ok but they came back on the EXACT day of his death, meaning they have mental calendars?? That's insane
Apparently, elephants respond very predictably to moon phases, so they clearly know how long it’s been since they’ve last seen someone. I guess like a calendar 😅
fits with the Matriarch leading the herd to water in drought. "96 moons ago there was no water there, there or there, but still water here, lets go .. here". Having a mental calendar would help with that
Uhm i think you got that wrong. They mourned him after he died, not every year like a bday
@@Flaschenteufel Yeah they did, they came back for a few years on *the* day he died. He says so in the video.
They probably track time like ancient humans did, not with calendars but the the changing seasons and moon cycles. "The weather is cool, and the moon is full for the 12th time. The good human died this day."
That behavior where they're rocking back and forth or moving their head the same way over and over, means they are literally going insane from the boredom.
The way I see it, mourning is the best way to test an animal's intelligence. It means that they have more than basic sadness and understand that they won't see someone again if they die.
Giraffes too hold memorials for their dead that are attended by unrelated individuals and not just family. So it goes beyond sadness and understanding loss; there is reverence and respect to those that have "transitioned into the unknown" and makes for an interesting case study regarding the origin of human spirituality.
I think it would vary depending on the animal, though. Hymenopterans for example have proven to be pretty intelligent, but they're very pragmatic and probably don't have much time to form bonds with specific members of the colony. I guess that makes hauling numerous bodies off to the graveyard sites easier.
They do have medics though, and they do get sad when isolated. So they still value their communities.
This removes the personhood of some disabled humans and that makes me VERY uncomfortable.
About 10 years ago, a pheasant decided it was going to adopt my family. It would accompany in the garden, knock at the back door for breakfast, and eventually introduced us to his wife.
When, very sadly, his wife was taken by foxes (I heard the commotion, but was too late to save her), he 'mourned' on the steps by our back door for 2 days. It rained the whole time, this poor bird stood still, head lowered, so dejected. He would eat no food. I stood at the window crying, my husband crying, our son crying. It was awful. But that bird definitely mourned the loss of his wife.
@@Debbie-henriwait, there's a bird named pheasant 💀
3:10 WE FOUND THE FIFTH BEATLES GUYS
Elephant: im smooth cha!! Cha!!!
Love your work man. In among all the joking judgments of animals and their traits, your love of all our non-human cousins really shines through. And of course when you put gags aside for a bit for a really sincere piece like this one, it's even more touching. Thanks for all you do and I hope you keep doing it a long time to come!
Ok, how in the world have I never seen elephant bangs before? Or an elephant tail? Or elephant boobs? Or elephants swimming? I feel mindblown. Amazing coverage, we really do take them for granted, they are so weird and yet so incredible. It's really sad how we've treated so many of our fellow creatures over time especially the ones that have that emotional edge to them, I'm grateful they're still around and don't absolutely hate all of us (yet), we're lucky to witness such things.
0:41 glad they patched This update and gave us the modern elephant 😮💨
Was kinda sad when the platybelodon bug was patched, was so funny seeing the other prehistoric players freakout as we caused chaos 😢
Goofy ahh elephant
@@S1ayer585.ah those were the days
I’m not😡
yeah but later a lot of designs got fully deleted too after devs rapidly changed the map :/
I think you've convinced me to make elephants one of my top favourite animals, and I never would have thought that before! This vid brought me to tears of awe...
You reminded me of my favorite elephant growing up, Ziggy at Brookfield Zoo. I knew as a child he should have never been in a zoo. I cried when he passed away, but he should have never been there, and before he passed when I would visit him, I always thought that moat was dangerous for him. RIP Ziggy.