Elephant senses

[SoCurious]

Elephants seem to be something special. I was sent this link (please don't shudder when you see the site

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2012/03/rescued-wild-elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-mourn-lawrence-anthony-south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php#ixzz1rJYHYJIx

A query. How STO are elephants?

 

[Brenda86]

Elephants seem to be something special. I was sent this link (please don't shudder when you see the site

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2012/03/rescued-wild-elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-mourn-lawrence-anthony-south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php#ixzz1rJYHYJIx

A query. How STO are elephants?

I don't have the answer to that myself, but that article is definitely interesting and very moving.

 

[HiThere]

Moving story, thank you for the link. :)

 

[Menna]

"An elephant never forgets"

"I have the memory of an elephant."

These quotes are funny :P

There was a movie called "Elephant Walk" about how elephants have travel and burial patterns

 

[Nienna]

An article on this was carried on Sott last May.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245458-Wild-Elephants-Gather-to-Mourn-Death-of-Elephant-Whisperer-

 

[loreta]

Elephants are amazing. I refused always to go to a circus because of them: to see them in the ring doing what they were force to do was too much for me. And the vision of an elephant in a circus was my first insight of the cruelty of human beings to animals. My first insight about human beings.

They are mysterious, because of their sensibility. They say that elephants cry, like us. That was another insight about animals. They take care of their elders, of their springs, they mourn, they have an extremely good memory. In my mind elephants have a soul, like us. To see that in a animal, how they are so "human" is another mystery.

I don't know if they are 2 STO or 4 STO. In front of animals, specially the "big ones" like elephants or whales... I feel that they have inside them something as old like earth herself.

 

[obyvatel]

Neuroscience research has pretty much proved that higher mammals like elephants share very similar instinctive/emotional substratum with human beings having very similar sub-cortical brain structures which mediate these attributes. Using Jaak Panksepp's idea of seven emotional primes (described here ), basic emotional affects would be the CARE, PLAY and PANIC/GRIEF systems which are related to social life. Elephant behavior shows strong components of these social affects.

Elephants have physically large brains and strong long-term social/emotional memory. In terms of cognitive/intellectual abilities which are controlled by neo-cortical brain structures, there are marked differences between humans, primates and elephants with cortical neurons being packed much more loosely in elephants. This is theorized to result in less compartmentalization in the elephant brain and consequently much slower processing of cognitive information.