. . . ?!

I think there are many mammals *much* more intelligent than we give them credit for. Douglas Adams had it right.

I love how she was checking out the classic paintings... "yeah..nice, but it's not elephants..."

Wow. Just wow. The fact that it's something so recognizable, and not just random splashes and strokes blows my mind. I guess it's possible that it's merely trained to do that same picture over and over, but the fact it can even replicate something is amazing.

I would shoot a poacher to protect an elephant. No doubt in my mind.

That is amazingly impressive, but I do wonder if its all training, ie "you get five peanuts for drawing this particular line" etc or if its actually abstract thinking, which would be much more than amazingly impressive.. I'd like to see 2 things, a drawing from start to finish, preferably with little or no "guide", and the rest of this clip...

I think the narrator meant "opposable thumb."

I have no doubt that elephants are brilliant- BUT - I call bullsh*t on that. Camera perspective never show elephants head and trunk while they 'paint', only long shot or trunk close up. Trunk puppet paints. Doesn't anybody remember the 'Why Cats Paint' book?

When I watch this video and read the comments, it gives me the warm feeling to know scams will continue to exist for millenias to come. Here we are on the ultra-cynical, mega-libertarian, hyper-sophisticated videosift (or so it likes to think of itself) - and people believe this video is real. I just need to find a way to place an ads on 'donate for the elephants' somewhere on that page and I'm in business!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Really- fake? I'm not sure. I would like to believe it's true - but does seem pretty incredible.

Have you guys seen this one? It's in related videos below. It shows more real time painting: http://www.videosift.com/video/Elephants-painting I Want To Believe!

You really think it was rigged with an animatronic trunk?? Its clear that the elephant can physically paint. The only question is whether it's been trained to paint that specific painting, or if it could create new recognizable images.

Elephants can play musical instruments and teach each other to do so. Some of the music is almost recognizable as such!

i am pretty sure elephants have painted, but this is pretty incredible. Almost literally incredible. Couldn't find anything with a quick google.
Very convincing vid though, apart from the sheer WTF of it. Hats off if it's a hoax.

Holy freakin crap!

That's really amazing if it's all that it's claimed to be, but I'm skeptical. I don't think it's a fake trunk or anything like that, but these elephants had trainers awfully close to them while they were painting and maybe they've only been trained to paint specific shapes and they're not actually doing any internal abstraction of an elephant form. Maybe the trainers are directing them.

someone should find a video on why elephants are going mad world wide, elephant attacks are increasing. The most likely theory is the orphaning of young elephants and the gruesome killings of their parents in front of them. No wonder, with this type of memory for shape alone, the elephants must remember that we, humans are those responsible for their parent's fate.

I used my giant super-monkey brain and googled for info on this elephant.
it's pretty clear that Hong has been trained to paint a particular shape. That is still pretty impressive.


http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=69&osCsid=0aa25b949cc72ab8c3636f31bf854266

OK, I just watched the other video and commented in there. This is mostly hoax. Especially this video, showing the elephant classic paintings, what rubbish. These paintings are in fact done by the elephant, but the elephant has no concept of the design of them. The trainer puts paint on the brush, then gestures to where on the canvas the elephant should paint, then passes the brush to the elephant. The "creativity" is somewhere between a connect-the-dots and a paint-by-numbers.

A neat trick, but please- these elephants wouldn't paint a thing if their trainers weren't right next to them telling them every stroke.

When she shows the elephant the paintings, it looks like he's pointing with his opposable-thumb-like part.

I want to see the rest of the video!

Yes. Where's the rest of it? That's simply mind-blowing. Wow.

sunkid... humans also have to be taught how to paint. and dogs blatantly can't be taught to paint as good as this video claims for elephants.

but yeah, until the elephant can paint anything new from sight without any direction other than "paint now!" then it's not really painting.

and until the elephant uses the painting to communicate an idea or a feeling, it's not art.

but it's a freakin elephant so it's still like wow, and more evidence that elephants are not the dumbest animals on the planet, even if they are just trained. I dunno. Maybe they like it. Maybe they sometimes think "that one sucked, i wanna do another one, better next time". Who knows.

Teaching an elephant to paint

An elephant trainer at a circus decided to teach his elephant to paint. After a while, he's taught it how to hold a paint brush. Later, he manages to teach the elephant how to dip the paint brush in the paint. Some time later still, he's managed to teach the elephant to stroke the brush against the canvas. Many years go by, and he teaches the elephant to paint better and better. Then one day, a reporter hears the story and comes to see the elephant paint. The elephant trainer says, "watch this"; he gets the reporter to sit on a stool and pose, and tells the elephant to paint a portrait of the reporter. The elephant paints deftly, with apparent confidence. After 20 minutes the reporter is excited to see the resulting portrait. The elephant trainer proudly turns the canvas around so the reporter can see it. It's just a mess of random colors. The reporter says "errr, it's crap". The elephant trainer is unperturbed. He beams with enthusiasm and pride "Maybe. But isn't it amazing - I've taught an elephant to paint!".

Source: http://ivan.truemesh.com/archives/000562.html

I can assure you all that this video is not fake. The video shows the TECC (Thai Elephant Conservation Center). We were there a few months ago and bought the painting that a baby elephant painted in the show we were at. At 500 baht it was more expensive than I had expected, but all proceeds go to helping sick elephants so it was worthwhile.

Even if the elephants are trained to do so... come on! It's freakin painting it!
And I've always thought the reason for the increase of elephant madness, is because they are so intelligent.

big deal...I can paint an elephant.

^but can you throw a car over a house?

We had an elephant here at the Alaska Zoo, Annabelle. She never had formal training of any kind, to my knowledge, but she still did some... interesting work. "Annabelle, an even-tempered elephant, was a popular attraction at the zoo, particularly known for the Abstract Expressionist paintings she made with a brush held in her trunk, which resembled the work of Willem de Kooning in his decline."

And I don't know about anyone else, but that elephant can paint a better elephant than I can. I'm impressed, even if she is being shown what brush strokes to make.

elephants have terrible vision and even then only at fairly short range. not sure how their color perception is, but doesn't seem likely an elephant is going to advance much beyond relatively simple shapes.

And of course they're being shown what to paint. How else is the trainer going to know what color goes on the brush next? "Oh, hey. That looks like a tree. And conveniently, the trunk is brown and the leaves are green." Until the elephant dips their own paint, yes. The painting is directed by someone else. But it is still mildly impressive.

I'd love to hear from these folks in Tennessee ;
<http://www.elephants.com>
Why are elephants going crazy? Cause they're kept in zoos in -Alaska?!#$? I suspect they are brilliant animals, but it's a shame to measure their intelligence in terms of human intelligence. I say forget art, or forced training, - if left to their own devices, would they be interested in attempting to make images, once they are taught that it's possible? Doubt it.

I've been to the Elephant Conservation Center north of Chiang Mai in Thailand. I've personally witnessed the elephants painting and one of the paintings was so great I bought it! (Just a quick note for the sceptics.)