

Elephant intelligence - vsingh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence

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TheTarquin
Interesting article. I went on a real animal intelligence kick a few years ago
when I read Eugene Linden's _The Octopus and the Orangutan_. The books full of
fascinating stories of animal emotion, intelligence, and tool use. (My
personal favorite was the Orangutan who learned how to pick the lock on his
cage and kept the improvised pick he used secreted behind his bottom lip, thus
allowing him to escape several times before handlers got wise to what he was
doing.)

On a separate note, Wikipedia may have its flaws, but it certainly excels at
giving accessible, digested information on pretty much every conceivable
topic. This is a perfect example of that: a complex topic adequately summed up
in a few digital pages.

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suboptimal
Brilliant beast! Wonder if my local liberry has the book (a library card is
highly recommended to you frugal, bootstrapping types as the cheapest
entertainment).

Regarding Wikipedia, I agree. I'm disappointed by the behind-the-scenes
manipulation and gamesmanship, but believe the sort of topics I tend to be
interested in are less likely to be manipulated.

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TheTarquin
Agreed. As in so many things, the strongest and weakest elements of Wikipedia
are both the human element. Of course, with Wikipedia, that's a pretty big
element . . .

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kirubakaran
I sincerely wish that humans leave the intelligent gentle animals to live
their life happily.

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tim2
I think the article about the young male elephants that went on a killing
spree, brutally ripping apart entire hurds, their own family, siblings,
infants, in an uncontrollable rage is relevant here. Link anyone? Of course
this example further shows that they are indeed quite similar to us in basic
psychology.

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gcv
I don't know what article you mean, but read this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=print)

Long, but fascinating.

The rampages you're talking about have been linked to elephant culling.
Elephants grow up in structured societies, where older elephants teach younger
ones proper behavior. Because of culling (a sterile word, if ever there was
one!) and the elimination of older elephants, younger members of the herd (1)
have not had the chance to learn proper behavior, and (2) suffer traumatic
grief early in life. Hence the rampages. Very humanlike, indeed. (Lord of the
Flies, anyone?)

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doubleplus
I love elephants. That's what made it hard for me to read this last week:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7262951.stm> I'm going through a Frans de
Waal-fueled chimp phase, too, and the news for them isn't much better. Same
for dolphins. Damned naked apes.

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rms
I find it particularly interesting that they have death rituals.

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mynameishere
Smaller animals have a death ritual: Being blown away with the wind.

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rms
I would have upmodded you; I thought this was a poignant observation.

