elephants
gregladen | December 10, 2010It is probably true that every culture has child safety devices. It is also probably true that all of these devices are very limited in their effectiveness.
As an anthropologist living with the Efe Pygmies of the Ituri Forest, I often found myself observing some thing ... an object, a construction of some type, or a behavior ... that utterly baffled me. I learned to avoid asking about things as questions occurred to me; The very asking of a question, especially if you are roughly the equivalent of an alien visitor (an extraordinarily wealthy giant scary white being with highly advanced…
mikethemadbiologist | September 11, 2010I found this video of an elephant and her dog. Or is it a dog and her elephant?
Does anyone have any idea how these two might view each other? I don't think they view each other as conspecifics. Do they view each other as equals, or does one feel responsible for the other?
Either way, I want a pet elephant.
An aside: On a day wherein bigoted idiots are burning religious books, I think doggies and olophaunts are about all I can handle.
edyong | November 16, 2009At first glance, the African elephant doesn't look like it has much in common with us humans. We support around 70-80 kg of weight on two legs, while it carries around four to six tonnes on four. We grasp objects with opposable thumbs, while it uses its trunk. We need axes and chainsaws to knock down a tree, but it can just use its head. Yet among these differences, there is common ground. We're both long-lived animals with rich social lives. And we have very, very large brains (well, mostly).
But all that intelligence doesn't come cheaply. Large brains are gas-guzzling organs and they need…
edyong | November 7, 2009
This is a bull elephant firmly establishing why it is he, and not the lion, who is king of beasts. The elephant's penis is not only massive but prehensile. As we watched in baffled amusement (and the faintest tinge of inadequacy), he used his penis to prop himself up (as in the photo), swat flies from his side and scratch himself on his stomach. David Attenborough never showed us that...
There's good reason for elephants to have prehensile penises. It's hard enough for a six-tonne animal to get into the right position for sex, let alone having to do the rhythmic thrusting that's required. So…
edyong | November 1, 2009We had numerous elephant sightings on our South Africa trip including a few family groups and a couple of lone males. Seeing them in documentaries or in zoos never quite captures just how big and impressive they are in the flesh, especially when they do things like beat up a tree. Note how this male uses his tusks and trunks to break off branches.
Also note how quiet it is except for the breaking of branches. Elephants may look like lumbering beasts, but their footfalls are dainty and quiet. They are 'digitigrade', meaning that they walk on their toes like a cat or a dog. Their heels rest on…
edyong | September 27, 2009This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. The blog is on holiday until the start of October, when I'll return with fresh material.
It's tempting to think that elephants have their own PR agency. Just last week, their mighty reputation was damaged by the revelation that they are scared away by bees but they have bounced back with a new study that cements their standing among the most intelligent of animals.
Lucy Bates and colleagues from the University of St Andrews have found that African elephants (Loxodonta africana) can tell the…
edyong | September 25, 2009This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. The blog is on holiday until the start of October, when I'll return with fresh material.
It's a myth that elephants are afraid of mice, but new research shows that they're not too keen on bees. Even though they fearlessly stand up to lions, the mere buzzing of bees is enough to send a herd of elephants running off. Armed with this knowledge, African farmers may soon be able to use strategically placed hives or recordings to minimise conflicts with elephants.
Iain Douglas-Hamilton and Fritz Vollrath…
edyong | December 12, 2008Elephants always count as star attractions in any zoo or wildlife park lucky enough to have them. But while many visitors may thrill to see such majestic creatures in the flesh, some scientists have raised concerns about how well animals so sociable and intelligent would fare in even the best of zoo environments.
Now, a new study suggests that some of these concerns might be warranted. Ros Clubb from the RSPCA, together with colleagues from various universities and the Zoological Society of London, studied the health of zoo elephants with a census of mammoth proportions.
Concentrating on…
edyong | December 11, 2008Moving to a new area can be a daunting experience, especially if you don't know anyone. At first, you might cling to any friends who do live nearby but eventually, you meet new people and start to integrate. As it is with humans, so it is with elephants.
Noa Pinter-Wollman and colleagues from the University of California, Davis wanted to study how African elephants behave when they move to new environments. This happens quite naturally as elephants live in dynamic societies where small family groups continuously merge with, and separate from, each other. But they also face new territories…
edyong | November 19, 2008About 18,545 years ago, give or take a few decades, a woolly mammoth died. Succumbing to causes unknown, the creature was buried in Siberian snow. Many other mammoths must have met similar fates but this one, which we now know as M4, is special. Almost 20 millennia later, its beautifully preserved remains were unearthed by scientists who have revealed both its body and its genetic code. For the first time, the genome of an extinct species has been sequenced almost to completion.
Webb Miller from Pennsylvania State University together with a large team of American and Russian scientists has…
mikethemadbiologist | October 13, 2008
Who knew elephants could use text messaging? Actually, park rangers in Kenya have developed a 'virtual fence' to separate rambunctious elephants from people:
OL PEJETA, Kenya -The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.
The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with…
edyong | September 28, 2008
You are on a date and by all accounts, it's going well. Midway through dinner, you excuse yourself and head to the bathroom where, to your chagrin, the mirror reveals that you have a streak of sauce on the side of your face. Embarrassed, you wipe it away and rejoin your date.
It's a fairly innocuous scene but it requires an ability that only the most intelligent of animals possess - self-awareness. It's the understanding that you exist as an individual, separate from others. Having it is a vital step to understanding that others are similarly aware and have their own thoughts and desires…