Can jumbo elephants really paint?
By Desmond Morris Last updated at 10:02 PM on 20th February 2009 Is it true that elephants are artists? Can they really paint pictures of flowers, trees and even other elephants? Are they the only animals on Earth, apart from human beings, that can create pictorial images? Last summer my friend, the scientist Richard Dawkins, asked me to look at a video clip on the internet, taken in Thailand, that showed a young female elephant called Hong painting a picture of an elephant running along, holding a flower in its trunk. He wanted to know if I thought it was a fake. The internet is notoriously awash with fakes of one kind or another, but this particular video appeared to be genuine. I could hardly believe my eyes as the elephant with a paintbrush inserted in the tip of its trunk started to place lines on a large white card. A nose for art: Elephants like this one have been trained to paint in northern Thailand Slowly, without anyone touching the animal’s trunk, the image emerged. And it
