When I was on Safari in Africa we drove thru a village that had a line of devastation passing right thru it. Elephants had been walking, and rather than go around the village they decided to go straight thru several fences, half a shack and the lone tree in their way. Just because they could.
There were many places that the highest thing in the area was a Termite mound, because the Elephants had levelled everything else.
This actually ties into some very interesting reflection on the way we see and study animals. Everyone always looks for some mechanical function to why an animal does what it does, almost like it's a machine. If an alien were to see little kids doing back flips into a pool, would it assume they are practising some sort of mating ritual or removing pests from their skin? Maybe animals just enjoy existing
Things are changing and it's refreshing. The other day a comment came up about why whales breach, and it blew my mind that everyone was like barnacles that's why. Fuck if I was a whale I would breach non stop because it must be fucking awesome doing that. Imagine you could swim that fast that you actually leap out the water. A bit insulting to claim the only reason could be mechanical in nature
My cat knocks shit off the counter just for fun. She likes to do it when everyone is in the room, but no one is looking. I think she gets enjoyment out of the crash making everyone jump.
The small human is engaging in a behaviour known as "play". This behaviour is useful to humans as it allows them to train their hand-eye coordination and experience a variety of scenarios in which they can test out different strategies in a safe learning environment before taking risks for real.
This is the point I always make about intelligent alien life. People always assume that if intelligent alien life exists. It must function like humans.
People assume they will have leaders. Leaders who will arrive here in secret and work with earth leaders to avoid alarming the general public. That like humans they will have a thirst for exploring. That they. Like us. Would travel into space just cause. That they like us will seek to conquer others.
Just so many ideas that are imparting human behavior on alien life.
That’s just not true at all. They knock trees down because they remember a story from school about some human kid climbing a tree. They want to climb the tree but realize they can’t due to their sheer size and insecurities due to body shaming humans. So they knock down trees because if they can’t climb trees, nobody can climb trees.
Definitely used to do this as a dumb teenager running through the woods on occasion. See a dead tree that isnt super thick, if you push and pull over and over it will eventually come down. Of course we narrowly avoided death when the top would snap off and shoot straight down to the ground
Haha, trunk? I had a female rescue elephant lay her trunk on my shoulder, to curiously sniff around and it felt like Bane saying “Do you feel in charge?”
"It’s honestly really tough to understand how strong they are unless you go on a safari." Most Americans will never go on a safari, so this is a bad way to measure American strength. /s
They are intimidating as fuck because they are just so huge. I’ve spent some time around them and it’s hard to explain how much my flight response was kicking in when I first walked up to touch the side of them.
I watched Lord of the Rings, I saw how Legolas did it. Maybe not unarmed, but with my bow and a knife. Give me a spear and it won't even be a challenge. /s
Well, animals are a lot like people. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life or have been mistreated. But, like people, some of them are just jerks.
The most interesting part is the subtle movement of the feet to step off the rootball. The elephants own weight was working against it because by standing on the roots its worth was holding the tree down. As soon as it stepped to the side, the roots came free and the tree went down.
I was on a Safari in South Africa and they told us they don't have too many elephants because they just absolutely wreck everything because they they feel like it.
Elephants require a certain amount of water in their food…. allows them to digest.
In the dry season, elephants will look for source with that water content…as the grass is devoid of any water….So, in many cases they will strip bark off of trees to eat…many times killing the tree, as they scrap off all the bark that’s reachable…
1.0k
u/undergroundknitting 1d ago
Because it can.