Just check to see if the elephant’s signature matches the signature on the painting.  Nothing to it.

I think this elephant has a self-esteem probleem with its ears. He/she deliberately left them away…

I’ve just seen this video on metacafe: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1203547/elephant_painting/

It’s really worth watching.
I found myself deeply amazed and incredulous at the same time. I am very sceptical of it but I can’t really see how it is fake. Even if they did teach the elephant to draw the shapes without him actually knowing what it is, it’s STILL f*ing amazing. You can see him finding the same line again after running out of paint with the first brush stroke.
Again, even if they taught him to draw this, it’s an amazing feat that he can remember and reproduce this.

I am really curious to find out more about this particular painting.

There’s also this webpage: http://www.elephantartgallery.com/
This seems to show that painting elephants are a reality, but none of the paintings on that page show the delicate lines shown in the “self-portrait”.

Alex - 27 July 2006 07:37 AM

I get a ‘page not found’ message when I click on the link.

The Hoaxers have discovered your IP addy.

Well, I’m not believing it myself.. Though I should point out that elephants are one of the few animals that can recognize their reflection as being themselves.

That video was really cool, and I’d like it to be genuine (as in the elephant painting by itself), but the thing that makes me dubious is the flower it paints near the end. An elephant knows what another elephant looks like, but I don’t think one could imagine what another elephant holding a six-foot tall flower looks like.

yes, he flower seems to be overkill. At 7:22 a man is carrying another painting into the frame with only flowers in a very similar styleon it
As I said before, I think there are different possible levels of fakery/reality to this:

1. The video is not real, it’s all cgi and photoshop.
2. It’s a trick (i.e. it’s not the elephants trunk or someone is moving the trunk for him)
3. The elephant is just tracing lines that are already on the paper.
4. They taught the elephant what exactly to draw but he doesn’t really know what he’s doing
5. The elephant genuinely wants to draw a likeness of himself and he likes flowers, so he puts one in there, out of scale to make it look prettier.

There are probably more possible nuances but I want to go through them anyway. If I overlooked anything, please let me know.
1. It looks quite real to me, but with todays possibilities, you never know. If you can spot any telltale signs of cgi/photoshop I’d be very interested.
2. As far as I remember there are no cuts in the video and I don’t know how you could guide the elephants trunk so precisely. I don’t see anything that suggests this.
3. I can’t see any lines; editing? If he’s tracing the lines I’m still impressed at his trunk-dexterity.
4. As I said in my first post, even if they taught him, it’s still impressive he can remember and reproduce it. But how could we really determine that? (unless the trainers tell us).
5. This is what they want you to believe. If it’s actually true, it’s beyond amazing. Also the scale of the flower doesn’t correspond to the elephant but to the other flowers he supposedly painted earlier (7:22).

Could get some savvy people get behind this and find out more about it?

Should I start a new thread for this? (The original thread is about a far less remarkable image of a painting only. No video).

thanks

Welcome to our tightly knit pact P.falc.
I am sure this thread is fine.
The “In The News” section is rather a mess as it is.

Aye, there are many possiblities. But I wonder, is if this Elephant had a mirror.
Being a zoo animal, you can go your whole life without seeing another of your kind.

I saw this on cute overload. Someone mentioned that they are trained to pain and they have someone “guiding” them by tracing on their ear. The other painting is done by another elephant. At one point in the vid, you can see other elephants are also painting. The similarities of the flowers suggest that there is some sort of training involved.

I worked as an elephant keeper for more than a decade and I find the video unexplainable. When I first heard about the video my reaction was disbelief because although I know elephants to be very smart, it seemed far beyond their capabilities.  They do not really focus very well directly in front of them, and although their trunk is quite dexterous, that sort of sustained accuracy seemed impossible to me. And even though they have fantastic memories that level of training seems impossible to me as well. I really don’t know.
Now, I do find the video suspect because we never see a great total view of the animal while painting, and the trunk looks a little odd to me; but on the other hand if it is a fake it is a fairly elaborate one and very well executed. I really want to know.

I still don’t think the elephant painted what it saw (as a 2D representation of something).  I think it was probably taught (conditioned) to make the painting.

It seems that this elephant does this exact same painting repeatedly.  If it was painting what it saw, you’d expect different images—other subject, other views, etc.