elephants

For humans, getting fitted with a prosthetic limb is now a relatively simple process. But how do you fit and prepare a three ton, 48-year old elephant for a prosthetic leg? With three years of practice and therapy, of course.

Motola the elephant had her leg shredded when she walked over a landmine in Thailand 10 years ago. The damage was so bad they had to remove the leg completely. Her operation also required enough anesthetic to put 70 people into a deep sleep.

"We didn't pay 37 million zlotys for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there," said Michal Grzes, a conservative councillor in the Polish city of Poznan, Reuters reported last Friday.

If the Kenya Wildlife Service starts running up its text-messaging charges, it has 44 elephants to blame. Rangers in Kenya have outfitted elephants with cellphone- and GPS-equipped collars that send warning messages when the pachyderms are about to raid farms.

All elephants are known to have good memories, but it's the older ones that are wisest during times of trouble. According to researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society of London, older female elephants with knowledge of distant resources of food and water could help herds survive during crises like droughts.