Elephant cognition

Elephant cognition is animal cognition as present in elephants. Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass of just over , 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 around 257 billion neurons. Elephant brains are similar to humans and many other mammals in terms of general connectivity and functional areas, with several unique structural differences. Although initially estimated to have as many neurons as a human brain, the elephant's brain has about three times the amount of neurons as a human brain. However, the elephant's cerebral cortex has about one-third of the number of neurons as a human's cerebral cortex. Elephants manifest a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and communication. Further evidence suggests elephants may understand pointing: the ability to nonverbally communicate an object by extending a finger, or equivalent. It is thought they are equal with cetaceans and primates in this regard. Due to such claims of high intelligence and due to strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them. Aristotle described the elephant as "the animal that surpasses all others in wit and mind." The elephant (both Asian and African) has a very large and highly complex neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species. Asian elephants have the greatest volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing of all existing land animals. It exceeds that of any primate species, with one study suggesting elephants be placed in the category of great apes in terms of cognitive abilities for tool use and tool making.