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| African forest elephant Photo: Pal Teravagimov Source: redOrbit |
A couple of days ago, my friend Lucie Lamoureux sent me a link to a wonderful animated short by Alex Gendler and Avi Ofer.
It's only about five minutes long, but packs a lot of great information into those five minutes. Some of the information it contains actually seems to have been come from my original Elephant a Day blog, which is kind of cool.
Elephant Lore of the Day
Since the title of the short is Why Elephants Never Forget, today's elephant lore features a couple of memory-related stories from my original blog.
In the late nineteenth century, Toby the elephant was a popular attraction at Moore Park in Sydney, Australia. Toby could do a wide range of tricks, including removing her keeper's hat when asked, and ringing a handbell held in her trunk. Toby, like all elephants, also had a very good memory.
During a voyage along Australia's coast, a deckhand fed Toby an orange loaded with hot peppers. It was a cruel thing to do, given the sensitivity of an elephant's trunk and mouth. On a much later voyage, the same deckhand happened to be passing by, when Toby grabbed him with her trunk. She tried to dump him overboard, but he landed in the rigging and was saved.
Pangal the elephant showed a similar ability to remember an affront to his dignity. In the early nineteenth century, Pangal worked as an army pack elephant in India. Pangal was a remarkably clever elephant, and had decided that he was willing to carry only a certain amount of weight. If he was given a heavier load, he would simply pull off the excess and throw it on the ground. Pangal was by no means unwilling to carry things; he just had a clear idea of what was fair.
One day, the army quartermaster lost his temper at Pangal. He threw a tent peg at the elephant's head, yelled at him, then stormed off.
A few days later, as Pangal was walking from the camp to a waterhole, he happened to pass the quartermaster. Seizing the man in his trunk, Pangal placed him high in a tamarind tree overhanging the road. Pangal then calmly walked away, leaving the quartermaster clinging to the branches until rescued by members of his brigade.
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| Forest Elephant Photo: Patricia Rosengrave Source: University of Canterbury, Christchurch |
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