We need a bit of a pick-me-up at this time of year because, let’s face it, 2017 has been a pretty exhausting year.
It seems people just can’t get along at all, and the internet is actually quite a depressing place to spend time.
But every now and then, we get a bit of information which makes it all worth it. A sliver of hope in a bleak online world.
And ladies and gentlemen, we think we have just that piece of info which will keep you jolly for the entirety of Christmas and into the New Year.
It was posted to Twitter by user Julia Hass, who wrote:
I just learnt that elephants think humans are cute the way humans think puppies are cute (the same part of the brain lights up when they see us) so pack it in, nothing else this pure and good is happening today.
Naturally, the internet couldn’t get enough of this amazing piece of information, and it’s been shared hundreds of thousands of times by animal lovers everywhere.
This just proves how amazing elephants are, and while the direct study which makes this claim can’t be found (though Julia says she found evidence to support the fact), there is plenty of evidence which places the massive creature at the top of the animal kingdom for intelligence.
We know they have brains which are similar in connectivity to the human brain, and even have heightened emotional intelligence over nearly every other creature on this earth.
Elephants have an incredibly large and highly complex hippocampus, which is the part of the brain which is linked to emotion and processing emotional information.
There are known cases of elephants suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of this enlarged hippocampus.
In terms of community structure, elephants have been known to display relatively complex social structures, forming close knit communities and exhibiting extreme emotion at the loss of one of their family.
It has even been theorised that elephants are one of the handful of animals in the history of the planet which exhibit a recognisable ritual around death.
Elephant researcher Martin Meredith recalls in his book an example of such a ritual when the entire family of an elderly female elephant gently touched her dead body with their trunks.
There were audbile screams and weeping from the entire herd before they all fell silent and began to throw leaves and branches over her to cover her. They then proceeded to stand over her for two days.
Elephants are also known for their altruism to other animals, including humans. They will help other elephants if hurt, regardless of relation.
In one instance, in India, an elephant helping to lift logs for locals by following a truck and placing the logs in holes which had been dug.
In one of the holes, the elephant refused to lower the log into the hole, and eventually the people realised there was a dog sleeping in the hole. The elephant only lowered the log when the dog had gone.
We really don’t deserve elephants. God bless them.
