TPO 51 integrated

The article and the lecture are both about the largest animal in the modern world - the elephant. While the writer highlights some interesting behaviors in elephants, the professor correctly notes that those are misunderstood beliefs.

First, the speaker states that it can't be assumed that elephants are aware of their approaching death just because they show isolation behaviors, such as breaking away from their herds. In fact, there is a practical reason as why they display such behaviors. When an elephant becomes old, their worn-down teeth make it hard to chew food. As a result, elderly elephants go seeking for softer foods like vegetations which usually grow near bodies of water where their lives may eventually end.

Second, in the reading it is believed by the author that elephants have artistic ability and are able to recognize different objects. The speaker, however, addresses this point when he says those elephants were actually trained to do the trick. This was possible by stimulating the elephants in the ears, which is the most sensitive parts of them. Therefore, the trainer can just touch a certain part of a trained elephant's ears in order to make it produce images of some objects.

Third, the professor points out the belief that elephants' fear of mice is only a misinterpretation. In fact, it is not mice that elephants are scared of, but rather all unfamiliar creatures in general. It is one of their natural instincts to be afraid of strange animals that can be a threat to their survival. For example, elephants in the zoo do not fear the surrounding mice as they're already familiar with the mice and thus don't mind their existence at all.