I couldn't believe this at first!

We know intelligence among animals varies: a dog is a lot smarter than, say, a beetle and a dolphin is smarter than both. The other day while we were at the zoo (yes Sue, those photos are coming!), I remember telling Sarah about a study I read a few years ago in which they described how intelligent elephants are. Indeed, elephants are one of the few animal species that is self aware enough to recognize that it is looking at a reflections of itself when presented with a mirror. Well, when I first saw the following video I thought, "No way. No way!" Well, as our surfer friends would say, "Way!" Check this out:



I looked up some info about this to verify its truthfulness and apparently it's all true:

From Wikipedia (read the whole article HERE):

Elephants are one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass just over 5kg, elephant brains are larger than those of any land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twentyfold those of a typical elephant, whale brains are barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. A wide variety of behavior, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, art, play, a sense of humor, altruism, use of tools, compassion, self-awareness, memory and possibly language^[1] all point to a highly intelligent species that are thought to be equal with cetaceans^[2][3] and primates^[4][5].

Aristotle once said that elephants were “The beast which passeth all others in wit and mind."

The Talent of the Trunk... "Ramona paints effusively yet thoughtfully, pausing to look carefully at her canvas before choosing each color"
They may be the smallest of the elephant family in size, but the endangered Sumatran elephants housed at the Bali Elephant Safari Park are truly big on talent - the talent of using their trunks for painting! Meet the ARTISTS!

Putting paint strokes to paper is simply an extension of an elephant’s usual penchant for drawing on the ground of their natural habitats. Generally elephants would use sticks, pebbles and leaves to make pictures in the sand and earth, but are now picking up a paintbrush and turning their trunks to a much loved hobby and creating amazing Elephant Artifacts! See their ART GALLERY!

The painting phenomenon for Bali Adventure Tours Safari Park elephants started in 1999, when two inspired artists, who established an Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project, came to visit the Park. The artists taught our elephants to paint inspirational works of saleable art to help raise awareness and funds for the Parks own Elephant Foundation. The results? – Elephant Artifacts that have seen these jungle matriarch's works turn into international conversation pieces in art circles around the globe.

Now, not all our Safari Park elephants can paint! Those who can are taught to hold paintbrushes with the tip of their trunks, and encouraged to communicate their message through color and individual designs. Like all artists though, some of our elephants are temperamental at times and will not paint until they feel the right mood strikes them!

Also:

How does an elephant get into art school?

The schools are started at elephant camps, so they don't have to travel far. Not every elephant can paint, though -- maybe only 10 percent.

Are they good students?

Juthanam [a 7-year-old who lives in Lampang] and Ramona [a 5-year-old who lives in Bali] are the sweetest ones. They are smiling all of the time. They are kids. We work mostly with younger elephants; supposedly they are easier to teach. They're also smaller. When they get to my age they are gigantic, and the boys have these huge tusks. It's kind of scary. Some seem to enjoy it, but they can't paint for very long because they get bored and start looking around. Some do it quickly. Juthanam is a very careful painter; it takes her so much time to paint. She'll hold the brush in front of the canvas without touching the surface. You are waiting and thinking, "Juthanam, please get on with it." Then -- blip -- she'll make a tiny mark.

Do you think my dog could paint?

The thing about elephants is they have this unique organ, the trunk. It has 50,000 muscles, much more than the hand. It has a sense of smell; it breathes. Imagine if your hand had a sense of smell. It's amazing, really. And art is born out of necessity. There are 3,000 elephants with no jobs. We can't set them free because there is no wilderness. Animal art, social concerns, environmental concerns -- all these important subjects of the end of millennium got connected in this project.

Click here to read more