The aquatic ancestry of elephants Scientists believe they have discovered why elephants have trunks - they used them as underwater snorkels. New research suggests that the animals evolved from mammals like the sea cow.
posted on May 31, 2008 - View this thread

Elephant Polo. Alf Leif Erickson is the Captain of the American Screw Tuskers Elephant Polo team . Alf is a retired attorney and former law professor from Florida. This alone doesn't make much of a post, but, you guessed it, there more, sometimes NSFW, inside.....
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

Film-maker John Downer fitted four elephants with cameras and set them loose. Many of the resulting photos are cute, and some seem made for photoshopping.
posted on Mar 24, 2008 - View this thread

Elephants are afraid of the buzzing of bees.
posted on Oct 8, 2007 - View this thread

"One guy I know got a black eye from being hit by an elephant’s penis."
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow has been linked to twice before on Metafilter. However, you can now view 10 minutes of his film as part of his Ted Talk--it's the most stunning nature footage I've ever seen. In the talk he also mentions a new concept he's developing called Animal Copyright, which I think is long overdue.
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

Elephants are self aware (news story, videos). "As a result of this study, the elephant now joins a cognitive elite," said researcher Frans de Waal at Emory University. [Past posts tagged with "elephant" "elephants"]
posted on Oct 31, 2006 - View this thread

Looking for a new religion? Something to save your soul? Do you like Elephants? Then consider becoming a Babarist, a new religion that is seeking to spread the word of Babar. Followers seek to influence and enhance every facet of their lives by asking "What would Babar do?"
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

"My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost." (For weeks I've been collecting special elephant links for a FPP; I guess I'm late again. So here we go.) Time for a Thai Massage (Includes a Thai Massage). Elephants on LSD. Elephants playing soccer. And Elephant encyclopedia. Christopher Bahn posted a large collection of Links about Elephants on “Incoming Signals”. Off-subject: Crazy German bikers, female bodybuilders and Velada Romántica
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Elephants travel with their huge feet. "Oh the places they go! Who knew they could fly and do cannonballs?
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Around A.D. 800, the storied Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid sent a diplomatic delegation some two thousand miles from Baghdad to Aachen, the seat of Charlemagne's empire. Among the many gifts for the Frankish ruler that accompanied the delegation was Abul-Abbas, the first recorded elephant north of the Alps.
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Philadelphia Zoo will close Elephant Exhibit, America's "Oldest Zoo" announced Thursday - becoming the 11th zoo in the US to stop displaying elephants since the Detroit Zoo made such a decision two years ago. Is this officially a trend yet?
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Mixing beer with elephants. Metal elephants. Antique Elephants. It's the Elephants Collector's Page. By the way, have you ever seen an elephant fly? Now you have.
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Should Mumbai ban elephants from the city? They're already using microchipped to crack down on "illegal elephants" being used for begging. Is this the next step?
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Elephant Rage might just tell us a lot about ourselves. There are rehab programs for elephants [mefi thread], and perhaps the ones for human victims can paired . This would be a pretty big step in acknowledging the trans-species psyche. Could this lead to a scientific revultion? Should it lead to an ethical one?
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

Eine Kleine Naughtmusik [pdf]. Great article on music by nonmusicians from Dave Soldier - the guy that brought you People's Choice Music [a musical work that will be unavoidably and uncontrollably liked by 72 +/- 12% of listeners], the Tangerine Awkestra [These children met in a schoolroom, where they listened to records by Ornette Coleman and Roscoe Mitchell of the Art Ensemble of Chicago played by their teacher, Katie Down. The children said they could do that. Down said they could NOT. The kids said can TOO. Down said could NOT and brought her own collection of musical instruments to school. The kids immediately became Artists and formed a band.] and of course the now infamous Thai Elephant Orchestra.
posted on Jan 3, 2006 - View this thread

"Ashes and Snow" is the name, but it's mostly very pretty pictures of brown people with acquatic mammals such as elephants. (Alas, the portfolio requires Shockwave.) The book is itself a work of art.
"The permanent home of Ashes and Snow, the Nomadic Museum, debuted in New York in 2004 and is charted to travel the globe with no final destination." In New York it filled Pier 54 for three months (not usually such a neat art venue).
posted on Dec 26, 2005 - View this thread

Elephants of Sri Lanka. Three have been lost in a train wreck.
posted on Dec 23, 2004 - View this thread

In Asia, elephant habitat is shrinking, bringing them into conflict with humans, though groups like the ANCF are trying to help them coexist. In Africa, countries with ivory markets have agreed to control or prevent the trade in a plan to be submitted to CITES. I would love it if we rewilded elephants in the Americas.
posted on Oct 9, 2004 - View this thread

Goodbye, Norma Jean. Norma the elephant was killed by a stroke of lightning. Seventy years earlier, though, Topsy was electrocuted by Thomas Edison, to "demonstrate" the danger of alternating current. Only a few years later, Mary was sentenced to death by hanging, to the amusement and edification of onlookers. It's rough being an elephant in America.
posted on Jun 13, 2004 - View this thread

Ashes and Snow. Photography by Gregory Colbert. [Flash, via wood s lot.]
posted on Feb 24, 2004 - View this thread

Bring Back the Elephants! This article proposes returning these "super keystone species" to the Americas, which were inhabited by proboscideans for so long. The eating habits of free-ranging elephants would help prevent wildfires, and this extreme exercise in rewilding would restart the evolution of one of humanity's own "evolutionary nursemaids."
posted on Sep 24, 2003 - View this thread

Freak Show: Jumbo In The New World "In 1903, American inventor Thomas Edison arranged to have an elephant publicly electrocuted in Luna Park. Up to that point Edison, in his bitter campaign to discredit the electrical theories of George Westinghouse, had been content to publicly electrocute cats and dogs. When Topsy, an enraged circus elephant, trampled to death its third trainer in three years, Edison offered to "execute" the animal in a way that would demonstrate once and for all his belief in the dangers of alternating current. The electrocution of this elephant was filmed and apparently the footage can still be viewed at the Coney Island Museum."
posted on Sep 15, 2003 - View this thread

Every worker is entitled to a pension.
Kerala elephants working for the local government will enjoy a number of work benefits according to the Indian state's decision on a set of rules for their upkeeping. West Bengal seems to have taken similar measures some years ago.
posted on Jul 28, 2003 - View this thread

Infrasound : Elephants use it to communicate, the military have sought to harness its power as a weapon (.pdf). So have The KLF. Now, a group of avant garde musicians invite you to feel the bass. If reports of the Feraliminal Lycanthropizer are to be believed, that could be one hell of a gig.
posted on May 19, 2003 - View this thread

"PETA Wins Right to Have Newest Party Animal" Judge orders the D.C. Commission on the Arts to allow PETA to display an entry in an ongoing public street art exhibit featuring elephants and donkeys, entitled "Party Animals Public Art Project".
posted on Aug 8, 2002 - View this thread

The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project was founded by artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid to teach domesticated elephants to paint so their works could be sold to support the elephants and their human masters.
posted on Apr 9, 2002 - View this thread

Edison electrocutes an elephant at Coney Island. I never knew this horrifying bit of history until I read about it via rscharm's MeFi post.
posted on Jul 23, 2001 - View this thread

Animals thought extinct found in remote Cambodian jungle: British scientists have found a wilderness in the Cardamom region of Cambodia where exotic species, some though to be extinct, have been found. These include the Siamese crocodile, the wolf snake (a new species so named because of its dog-like fangs), large populations of tigers and Asian elephants, and the gower, a forest cow. Ironically, the habitat was protected from significant human intrusion because it was a longtime Khmer Rouge stronghold and also because routes lead to and from it are landmined.
posted on Oct 5, 2000 - View this thread