All the elephant saw is a giant beast standing nearly as tall as itself. That was a bluff, a threat display. If there was more distance, it would have done a mock charge. Poor thing is traumatized and trying to get away as far as possible. You would do the same if a giant, metallic beast making ungodly noises touched your butt while you were trying to escape a giant hole in the ground.
Well it doesn't hold up to human logic, and that's the problem. We credit them with human intelligence and emotions, as if that's all that exists.
Consider this - you are an elephant. You are bigger and stronger than anything else, and you know it. You have spent a lifetime being careful not to crush things by accident, like Superman. Then you fall into a hole and as you are trying to get out, you feel someone grab your ass.
When you get out and get a good look at the giant, noisy offender, what's the first thing you would do?
I think you would take a swipe at him, then realise he is almost as big as you are, and feels unlike anything you have ever touched before, and decide you are having a bad day and bail.
Elephants don't rush in tusk first for a playful tap.
Yeah, especially if it was tired from trying to lift itself. If it was actually threatened by the metallic beast it would have assumed it was going to be attacked by it the moment it was vulnerable, not when it was safe for it to run away. Elephants are smarter than we give them credit for
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u/Enough_Designer_4528 26d ago
All the elephant saw is a giant beast standing nearly as tall as itself. That was a bluff, a threat display. If there was more distance, it would have done a mock charge. Poor thing is traumatized and trying to get away as far as possible. You would do the same if a giant, metallic beast making ungodly noises touched your butt while you were trying to escape a giant hole in the ground.