Elephant racing Affairs in India, Nina Hagen, the German rock singer, and Brigitte Bardot, the French film actress. In India only two states hold the event. In Nepal, the race started as an International Elephant Race in December 2005. The Tharu people of Nepal, who are professional tamers of wild elephants, ride the race elephants. A particular feature of this race is that riders of racing elephants are chosen by lottery and not by choice and this makes the riding difficult for the jockeys who train on their favourite particular elephants. The winning elephant is awarded a trophy. The racing track is
Elephant cognition Elephant cognition Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass of just over 5 kg (11 lb), an elephant's brain has more mass than that of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty times those of a typical elephant, a whale's brain is barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. In addition, elephants have a total of 300 billion neurons. Elephant brains are similar to humans' in terms of general connectivity and areas. The elephant cortex has as many neurons as a human brain,