Elephants Never Forget They're Smart!

We all know elephants are brainiacs (they have such big brains!), but did you realize they were this smart?

If you are me, then of course you did! Because long before this study was conducted, I watched a great animal-human documentary called [Insert Name of Documentary Which I Totally Forgot the Name of! I think it was on PBS...] which shows a group of humans who live with a herd of elephants in a sanctuary. During their time together, they've learned to communicate with each other in a number of ways, but perhaps the most notable is that the elephants knew to raise their voices to a pitch audible to humans when speaking with them. Normally, as noted in the article above, elephants speak to each other in low grumbles and roars that are inaudible to us. That they knew to speak in pitches we can hear is truly remarkable.

Also, when trying (and failing) to figure out the name of the documentary, I ran into a bunch of articles about Alex the Parrot. If you haven't read the book, Alex and Me, read it. It's a great story about animal-human relationships and communication.