Photo of the Week - a window to the soul
(1 comments)
The elephant eye has always been a fascinating and popular subject for the wildlife photograpaher - amateur and professional alike. Some have compared the emotion portrayed in an elephant eye to that of a human eye, and it seems that as we learn more about this incredible species the comparison is becoming more appropriate in symbolising just how intelligent the elephant really is.
While our realities are vastly different and we can only speculate on what it is to experience the world as an elephant in the African bush, there are some things that are measurable. Some experiments have shown elephants to have abilities previously only found in great apes and humans. Some scientists also believe that elephants have better short term working memories that humans.
It is generally accepted that elephants have incredible hearing abilities and communicate using low frequency sounds, each elephant having a unique call something akin to "I am here, where are you?" Some research says that matriarchs (the female leader of an elephant herd) is able to memorize about 100 individual callings of other elephants that are situated up to several kilometres away.
Some researchers even speculate that elephants can differenciate between different languages! Incredible!
This wonderful shot was taken by Cedric Vanderlinden at Kariega Game Reserve South Africa and posted to our Facebook wall. Thanks for sharing Cedric and we hope you enjoyed spending time with the Kariega elephant herd!
If you have any comments, images or questions please feel free to post them here on our blog, or on our Facebook wall or email to lisa@kariega.co.za
Call us
Email us
