Nature Strikes Back: Drunk Elephants.

A lot of religions, and even nonreligious people, like to think that humans are something special. "Closest to God" comes up a lot. Basically, we think very highly of ourselves, even though we have screwed things up - sometimes irreparably. We may build skyscrapers, but whoops, that's more undiscovered species dead!

This week flies in the face of that vain way of thinking. In other words, nature doesn't give a **** about how special humans supposedly are and causes havoc anyways, treating them just like every other animal on the planet. Every so often, there are events that will remind humans that, hey, there's a huge wild world out there, and we're just a small part of it that is slowly decimating the rest. We aren't just talking about predators going on killing sprees; we're talking about craziness like...

...drunk elephants. You are reading that statement 100% correctly.

Yes, elephants like drinking. There are plenty of animals that like altering their consciousness on some level. Anybody who has given their cat catnip will tell you that most of them seem to like getting high as a freakin' kite on the stuff. It's kinda rare for animals to like liquor - or, rather, to like liquor and be able to tolerate it. (Please don't give your dog beer; it's not worth risking their health for something funny.)

It turns out that elephants might be able to get drunk without the aid of humans as well. In South Africa, there is a fruit called a "marula" that is not only delicious when ripe, but ferments into potent liquor after being ingested. There is some doubt as to whether elephants in particular get drunk off of a few fruits, but the "documentary" Animals Are Beautiful People at the very least shows us what a drunk elephant might look like so that we can get the eff out of the way.



Basically, elephants are smart, huge animals that like getting wasted. They have figured out that humans have booze, and will go out of their way to get it. Talk about nature being adaptive; these elephants will literally trample right over people to get their fix. They act aggressive and awkward while drunk, and presumably say all the things they want to say but normally wouldn't in front of their elephant buddies.

Sound familiar? Yes? Well, add on the usual human drunkenness to tons of muscle and a 30 mile-per-hour charge. Suddenly, the image of a drunk elephant is not so funny. Multiply it by fifty; elephants can rush their version of a bar en masse, too. It happens a lot wherever humans and elephants happen to coincide. Y'know, as if the elephant had not already been subconsciously linked with liquor.

As a reminder, this is a thing.

Bio-Art: Elephant Painting.

Many of us probably see art as a human thing. Creativity is one of the things that make our species special. We probably shouldn't be surprised that another mammal can make art...and it's not a chimpanzee.



Believe what you see: That is indeed a real elephant drawing a painting of an elephant with a flower in its trunk. Six elephants have been trained to paint other elephants at an elephant camp in Thailand. The one pictured here is one of the older females. Cool, isn't it?

Now, let's get a few things straight: the female elephant shown here has been trained to paint. The training took about a month, which is enough to prove that elephants are super-smart animals; say what you will about creativity, but a month is a short time for an animal to learn something. Dogs go to obedience school if they can't learn to sit; elephants can make art in the same amount of time.  It was all done with positive reinforcement, so any elephant-made paintings are humane as well as unique.

Does being made by a trained elephant mean it's not art? Oh, it's art. Elephant-made paintings can be found in a few art galleries. You can also buy prints of them online here. Being human is not longer a requirement for making art, although the abilities to abstract and use opposable thumbs help considerably. (Speaking of, chimpanzees are supposedly HORRIBLE artists by comparison.)

On an artistic note: An elephant could not be a Western artist. One of the key differences between Western art and Eastern art is that Eastern art practices economy of line. Western art seeks to capture every little detail in an attempt to make a photorealistic image; Eastern art would rather use just enough lines to capture the subject's spirit. The elephant in the video could not replicate Van Gogh, but I would say she captured the spirit of the elephant very well.