I have been told that Elephants really are scared of rodents, just like the cartoons show us. Apparently, the rationale is that if an elephant is sleeping, a rodent crawling into its ear during the night gives it quite a
headache the next morning. Is this true? What’s the real deal on elephants and rodents?
I thought it had something to do with not wanting to squish the little rodents inbetween the pads of their feet. Something like that, but I think that they really do act carefully around small animals.
no they’renot really scared of rodents
Cecil said it, I believe it, that settles it
Where dis Cecil say it? Is there a link? I have bets on this you see!!!
Didn’t find the Cecil link, but this has been covered before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31704
The idea came from an ancient story in which a mouse crawled up an elephant’s trunk, according to http://bayridge.com/facts01.htm
I too seem to recall Cecil covering this one, but I can’t find it. Perhaps it was David Feldman in one of his “Imponderables” books.
http://www.zoo.org/educate/fact_sheets/elephants/elephant3.htm
(source seems reliable)
About the end of World War II, writer George Stimpson took up this topic and said it’s likely the elephant can’t even see a mouse near it. And this isn’t exactly about elephants’ ears, but Stimpson also discussed the notion that an elephant is afraid the mouse will crawl into his trunk; but Stimpson said naturalists dismiss this, saying that a mouse that crawled into an elephant’s trunk would “be promptly blown into the next county.”