Elephant intelligence | Hacker News Reader

Elephant intelligence

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32 pointsvsingh10 comments

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.

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.

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 . . .

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

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.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?p...

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?)

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.

I find it particularly interesting that they have death rituals.

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

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

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