Elephant_show_in_Chiang_Mai_P1110469With the school year starting up, we’re all focused on learning. It turns out, the Zootles animals this month are pretty smart too– elephants! Elephants have the largest brains of any land animal, but that shouldn’t be too surprising– after all, male African elephants are the biggest land animals in the world. However, their brains aren’t just big– they’re packed with three times the number of neurons, the cells that move information through the brain via chemical and electrical signals, that humans do.

Elephants have keen problem-solving skills that they use to find food, including using sticks as tools. They have deep, emotional bonds with each other and comfort each other when their friends and family are sad, sick, or hurt. And that old saying that “elephants never forget”? Elephants really do have excellent memories, remembering friends and places that they haven’t seen in years. One elephant in a zoo even learned how to paint!

Photo by Deror Avi.