Elephants

Have you ever sat down and realized that maybe you know too much about Elephants?

I'm going to guess the answer is, "no," for most people.  But I had that moment this weekend, visiting my sister and mother for Thanksgiving.  We were having dinner with my sister, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend's uncle when the conversation turned to Elephants as it naturally would.  Like, did you realize that Elephants walk on their tiptoes?  They have a cushion under the toes to help support them, but it means that they can sneak up on you if they want.  Which makes my mom's joke about elephants wearing sneakers irrelevant.

For me, the obsession with this Pachyderm really started with the free copy of Zoobooks that came in the mail.  It was always the one about the Elephant and my parents never subscribed for the others.  This was the source of most of my knowledge about Elephants and I remember it very fondly.

My favorite part about the Zoobook was the poster of all the extinct varieties of Elephants.  It told me that there was an extinct type of Elephant that was no bigger than a dog.  And part of me really wants a Bichon-sized Elephant to take on car trips with me.  Think about how awesome that would be.

My most recent information binge about the animal was a documentary about Elephants suffering from PTSD.  The elephants in zoos and circuses killing their trainers out of the blue is because of the PTSD they suffer from witnessing their parents getting shot by poachers.  The baby elephants are left with the corpse until a rescue organization whisks them away to protective shelters.  All seems fine and dandy until something causes them to snap and then they go on a killing rampage.  They method used most often to kill a human being: crush a person's chest with your massive skull.

Except for poachers and dwindling habitat, the adult Elephant has no natural predators.  The elephant's trunk can uproot a tree or pluck a single flower.   They are also considered as intelligent as dolphins and there's a zoo elephant that creates artwork.