Pink cartoon elephants names. How to name an elephant: choose a name for the elephant

Almost every person in his life has encountered a situation where he needs to come up with a nickname for his pet. This can be difficult, even if we are talking about a cat or dog.

But if someone unexpectedly acquired an exotic animal, such as an elephant, then deciding what to name the elephant will be even more difficult. Of course, this problem is primarily relevant for zoo workers.

There are many famous elephants whose names have truly gone down in history. For example, the famous elephant Ruby used her trunk to paint pictures that were valued at thousands of dollars. It is important to know the stories of such celebrities - they will best help you decide what to call an elephant.

Elephants, like all animals, have character and personality. It is very easy to choose a name for an elephant based on its behavior or appearance.

A huge, strong elephant may turn out to be a Giant or a Goliath - or, on the contrary, a Baby, if you choose a nickname with gentle irony. Don't forget about the standard nicknames that are usually given to cats or dogs. Calling the elephant Murka is quite funny and original.

A win-win option is to name the elephant in honor of a literary, cinematic or other famous character. There are few people who have not heard about Dumbo the elephant. However, you should not limit yourself to heroes of animal origin only.

Russian or foreign classics are always a rich source of information. Why not name the elephant Onegin or Bazarov, if this suits his character? Such a name will certainly make him intelligent.

Another idea is to use ordinary human names. A respectable and serious elephant should be called Boris or Aristarchus, a frivolous one - Shurik. In addition, it happens that an elephant subtly resembles some real person, after whom it can be named.

If it is very difficult to choose a name, there is always the option of organizing a survey among friends or, if we are talking about a zoo, among visitors. This survey can be conducted in person or online. A suitable nickname will probably be found quickly.

The Latin name of the elephant family is Elephantidae. In addition, it distinguishes many species, each of which has its own name. This and other facts from various encyclopedias can serve as an excellent source of inspiration for choosing a name for an elephant.

Here are just a few ideas that can give you direction and help you decide what to name your elephant. In fact, the choice of nickname is not limited by anything except the amount of imagination, and there can be countless options here.

History knows a large number of legendary animals. Among them there are elephants, the most famous of which are described below.

Elephants of Pyrrhus

After the exploits of Alexander, the use of several elephants in armies became fashionable - some even considered them an obligatory attribute. In 279 BC, the Greek general Pyrrhus attempted to revive the Alexandrian Empire by invading southern Italy with an army that included twenty armored and armed elephants. Pyrrhus hoped that his elephants would terrify the Romans, but in the end it turned out that the huge animals blocked the narrow streets, preventing the soldiers from moving forward. In addition, Pyrrhus encountered one of the most common problems associated with war elephants: every time the elephant began to panic, it trampled the soldiers of its own army. Pyrrhus's invasion was successful, but it cost him dearly - that's when the expression "Pyrrhic victory" was born. The ancient historian Plutarch wrote after this victory: “If we win another battle with the Romans, we will be completely destroyed.”

Surus: crossing the Alps with Hannibal

The Carthaginian general Hannibal is known as one of the greatest military leaders in history. In 218 BC he invaded Italy from the north, crossing the Alps from Gaul with an army of foot soldiers, cavalry and some North African forest elephants. These animals were smaller in size than the African and Asian elephants that can now be seen at the zoo. Of the six elephants that survived the difficult trek through the mountains, five died during the subsequent winter. The sixth, an elephant with one tusk named Surus, replaced Hannibal's horse and observation tower, giving him the ability to navigate the swamps of the Arno. Over the next fifteen years, Hannibal won battles and occupied most of Italy, while periodically new elephants arrived directly from Africa. In 209 BC, Hannibal's war elephants were an incredible shock force in the battle against the Roman consul Marcellus until the Romans managed to wound one of the animals, creating panic in their ranks.

Kandula: the elephant who helped unite Sri Lanka

Another famous ancient elephant was the companion of King Dutugamunu, the ruler of Sri Lanka in the second century BC. He is famous for being able to defeat King Elara, his South Indian enemy, which allowed him to become the ruler of the entire island of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. The elephant Kandula was caught in the forest when Dutugamunu was born, and he was nearby all the time while the little prince was growing up. It was on it that Dutugamunu rode into battle, and in 161 BC he became the hero of the siege of the city of Viyitanagar: the elephant returned to battle after molten tar was poured on its back, and helped break down the gates to the city. According to the chronicles, Dutugamunu rushed to his elephant with the ointment and the words: “Dear Kandula, I will make you lord of all Ceylon.” Later, it was Kandula who was the elephant on which the king went to a duel with King Elara.

Mahmud: the elephant whose arrival marked the birth of Muhammad

The first year of the Islamic calendar corresponds to 622 AD of the Christian calendar - this is the year of the Hijra, the migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. However, the prophet was born 52 years earlier, in the year known in the Islamic world as the “year of the elephant.” It is so named because it was then that the Christian ruler of Yemen attempted to invade Mecca using war elephants and destroy the Kaaba, the central temple that predates the rise of Islam. As legends say, the leading war elephant, who was prophetically named Mahmud, stopped at the border of Mecca and refused to go further.

Abdul Abbas: Charlemagne's elephant

In 801 AD, a Jewish trader named Issac returned to Europe after a four-year stay in the Persian Empire and Africa. He was sent there by Charlemagne, the Frankish king who was crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor. Issac's goal was to obtain the elephant of Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph, who was later immortalized in many of the stories in the Arabian Nights. Haroun was known for turning Baghdad into a cosmopolitan center of religion and scientific research, and he wanted to establish friendly relations with Charlemagne in order to gain an ally in the fight against the two dynasties - the Byzantines in Greece and the Umayyads in Spain. The elephant, which was named Abdul Abbas in honor of the founder of the Abbasid Empire, was warmly received at the court of Charles, who took it to war with the Danes in 804. However, the elephant avoided fighting in every possible way.

Henry III's Elephant

Charlemagne was not the only medieval ruler to receive an elephant as a diplomatic gift. Henry III, who ruled England from 1207 to 1272, received several similar gifts. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II sent him a camel, while the King of Norway gave him a polar bear. But Henry received the biggest gift from King Louis IX of France - it was an African elephant. Henry quickly hired the Sheriff of London to ensure that a house was built “forty feet long and twenty feet high” for the elephant. Crowds flocked to gaze at the marvel, and among them was the English chronicler and illustrator Matthew Paris, who produced an incredibly detailed illustration of the animal. Unfortunately, just two years into London, Henry's elephant died, presumably from drinking too much wine.

Hanno: the Pope's pet, the artist's muse, the critic's tool

In 1514, a huge procession led by the Portuguese explorer Tristan da Cunha arrived in Rome. What attracted the most attention was the large white Indian elephant, which was covered with gold brocade, and on its back stood a silver chest filled with gifts. It was Hanno, an elephant sent by King Manuel I of Portugal as a gift to Pope Leo X. As expected, the trained elephant bowed before the Pope, after which he doused the enthusiastic audience with water from his trunk. Hanno was central to Manuel's strategy to gain the Pope's support to gain the newly discovered Spice Islands. Now part of Indonesia, they were then the only place where nutmeg could be found. The strategy worked, and for several years Hanno appeared at various Roman festivals. After the elephant died in 1516 at the age of seven, the Pope ordered the artist Raphael to create a memorial portrait of the animal. Leo's affection for Hanno provided an opportunity for irony for critics such as Martin Luther, who described the Pope as "idly catching flies while his elephant bows before him."

Thomas Jefferson's Mistaken Mammoth

In 1801, US President Jefferson was sent a request to excavate bones that were discovered near New York. Jefferson agreed, and then the first remains of the North American mastodon, a prehistoric ancestor of elephants and mammoths that went extinct about 11 thousand years ago, were discovered. These remains were mistakenly taken for the bones of a mammoth.

Jumbo: the elephant that became a source of profit

This elephant was never given as a gift to either the king or the president. However, one of the most famous elephants of the 19th century can count Queen Victoria as a devoted fan. Jumbo was found in Mali, after which he ended up in London, where he became extremely popular. In 1882, it was sold to an American entrepreneur, who paid a lot for the purchase and transportation, but was able to recoup the costs within two weeks of performances.

Lil Wang: WWII Veteran and National Symbol of Taiwan

In 1942, the Japanese invaded Myanmar and a force of elephant workers built roads and fortifications. A year later, the Chinese captured 13 elephants and took them to China, where the surviving animals were used to build war monuments after the war. In 1947 they were transported to Taiwan, and by 1950 only one elephant remained alive, nicknamed Lil Wang. In 1954, he ended up in a zoo, where he served as entertainment for many people for an extremely long time. He died in 2003 at the age of 86 and was posthumously recognized as a citizen of Taipei.

Eat elephants, whose names became famous throughout the world and remained in the annals of history. The reasons for this are different - some animals were enormous in size, others became a gift to the powers that be, and others gained fame after tragic events. In this article we will list the most famous African and Asian elephants on the planet.

Elephant Walk of Fame

1. Circus elephant Topsy. Performing in the circus, this animal became famous due to three tragic deaths that occurred due to its fault. The elephant killed three. They decided to execute her. Inventor Thomas Edison proposed using electric current for this. Topsy's death was captured on videotape. This video has become part of popular culture.

2. Mary the Elephant. This Asian-born elephant also performed in a circus in the United States and is also famous for a tragic reason. Mary trampled the novice trainer for the reason that he pierced her skin with a hook in order to force her to move. In the midst of panic, the elephant escaped from the circus and, in a state of passion, trampled several more people.

3. Ruby the Elephant. This animal became famous for its artistic talent. One fine day, a zookeeper saw a female elephant enthusiastically moving a stick along the dirt floor. He gave her a brush, gave her paint. Imagine the surprise of the management when Ruby drew something similar to an abstraction. Her work has been valued at thousands of dollars.

4. Elephant Batyr. This animal lived in one of the zoos in Kazakhstan. The elephant became famous for its ability to imitate human speech - it was taught to make sounds in which about twenty words could be recognized (in particular, the name of the elephant).

6. Elephants Hanno and Abul Abbas. These two elephants, who lived in different centuries, are united by two things - the white color of their fur (a rare phenomenon) and the fact that both were given as gifts to high-ranking officials. The first went to the Pope in 1514, the other was given to Charlemagne by the Caliph of Baghdad in 798.

7. Jumbo the Elephant. This large savannah elephant traveled from Africa to the Parisian zoo, then to the London zoo, and then to the American circus. During his career, Jumbo managed to become an advertising star and the highlight of a famous circus show. In 1885, Jumbo was hit by a train, which also became widely known.

Ecology

It is extremely tempting to give the title of the world's most intriguing animal to one of the great apes. Chimpanzees have much more in common with us, and if nature gave them one more chromosome, they could give up bananas and pick up cubes.

But below we'll look at species that are a little more difficult to humanize (but hardly impossible, given Dumbo's incredible mid-air turn). The elephant is the largest land animal on our planet. The most massive elephant in human history weighed 26,000 pounds. The list below highlights the lives and strange deaths of some of the most famous elephants to walk the earth.

10. Abul Abbas

In 797, Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad, gave Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and the Roman Emperor a clock inside which was constructed of a bird that chirped after each passing hour. He also gave him an Asian elephant. While one must assume that Charlemagne was fascinated by the cuckoo clock, the pachyderm was apparently just as impressed.

Unfortunately, very little reliable information about Charlemagne has been preserved in history, and the same is true with references to Abul Abbas. It is known, for example, that the elephant was used in the battle against the Danes. In 810, when the elephant was over forty years old, he died of pneumonia, which he contracted during one of his frequent baths in the Rhine. Naturally, exotic animal veterinarians were a rarity at that time.

9. Old Bat

On April 13, 1796, the second elephant in the life of the continent arrived in America on a private armed ship. Oddly enough, an entry about an elephant crossing the border was made in a regular logbook by a certain Nathaniel Hathorne. The elephant, named Old Bat, was put on public display in the early 1800s.

After some time, it was purchased by a farmer named Hachaliah Bailey for use on his farm. But he soon realized that he could earn much more money by traveling with an elephant around the country than by having it pull a plow on a farm. He organized a traveling menagerie and made the main bet on the elephant.

Admission to the show for one family cost one coin or two gallons of rum. Bailey states that Old Beth was killed on July 24, 1816, during one of his tours by a farmer who believed it was sinful for the poor to waste their limited funds on such trifles as the circus.

8-7. Castor and Pollux

Paris, despite its deep cultural heritage, has faced a great deal of unrest over the years, in fact, 1870 was one of the darkest periods in the city's history. German troops then surrounded the capital of France, Paris was blocked and besieged.

Since the French were denied outside access to food supplies, they began to subsist on whatever animals were at hand. Their menu included dogs in tomato sauce and cats with mushrooms. Next they got to the animals in the zoo. Castor and Pollux, two elephants, were among the first. Named after the twins, they were sold to local executioners.

The wealthy English politician and writer Henry Du Pre Labouchere tried the “delicacy” and commented on what he ate as follows: “Yesterday I dined on part of Pollux. Pollux and his brother Castor are two elephants that were killed. It was tough and very fatty meat, I do not recommend that English families eat it while they can eat beef or lamb."

6. Jumbo

Perhaps the most famous elephant to ever exist was Jumbo, a huge African specimen captured in Ethiopia in 1869. He spent several years at the London Zoo, but was eventually sold to showman Barnum in 1882 for $10,000.

Jumbo, whose name later became the most common synonym for "big", got his nickname from the Swahili word "Jambo" (meaning "hello") or "Jumbo" ("chief"). He was in fact exceptionally huge, standing at least 12 feet tall.

On September 15, 1885, the circus intended to travel to Ontario, Canada. Jumbo and a little elephant named Tom Thumb were heading to their paddock when suddenly an unexpected train began to pull into the station. The baby elephant “caught” a glancing blow and broke his leg, but Jumbo suffered much more severely, his skull was crushed. In the last moments of the elephant's life, his trainer knelt down and cried like a child, holding Jumbo's trunk in his hands.

After his death, it was found that the stomach of everyone’s favorite elephant was simply littered with coins, keys, various rivets and even whistles. His skeleton was donated to the Museum of Natural History in New York, and his heart was sold to Cornell University. For several years after his death, Barnum took his effigy with him on tour. In 1889, he finally decided to say goodbye to Jumbo and donated his stuffed animal to Tufts University, of which he later became the mascot.

5. Topsy

Any exploration of Brooklyn's Coney Island must include the sad tale of Topsy's encounter with the self-serving wizard Thomas Edison. Topsy was an attraction at the Forepaugh Circus and was often severely bullied. There is a known case when they tried to feed her with a lit cigarette. Topsy was later sentenced to death in the most murderous manner possible.

The great inventor Thomas Edison spent his entire life trying to prove that his direct current model was more efficient and safer than the alternating current model. Edison, being a shrewd if somewhat ruthless businessman, decided that the best way to debunk alternating current technology was to demonstrate how electricity worked on a defenseless animal.

Surely, if he could show the American public that alternating current was sufficient to kill such a huge beast, no reasonable person would risk the safety of his family to use it.

Shortly before the "performance" he began working with Topsy, feeding her carrots with the addition of 460 grams of potassium cyanide. They then tied metal discs to her legs and hit her with 6,600 volts of force. About 1,500 people watched this spectacle, and Topsy died within seconds. Edison ultimately lost the “electric war,” however, the incident with Topsy brought him unprecedented popularity, because the film recording the death of the animal was shown in cinemas around the world for a long time.

4. Maria

Maria was a five-ton Asian elephant who competed in the Sparks World Famous circus show. Her death came in the person of Walter Eldridge, a new employee of the circus company, in September 1916. When he first approached her, she picked him up with her trunk and slammed his head against the wall several times, crushing him completely. Seeking justice, the local blacksmith decided that Maria should pay for what she had done.

However, if you have a big gun and a big target, shooting an elephant is a pretty bad idea. The several dozen bullets he fired at Maria did practically no harm to her, then he decided that she should be hanged. A crowd of 2,500 people, many of them children, gathered to watch the seemingly unprecedented spectacle. The chain looped and the industrial crane car lifted her up, but someone forgot to release her ankles from the chains, it was a terrible moment as the elephant hung in agony.

Witnesses say they could hear the tendons in her ankles tearing. The chain on her neck could not stand it, she fell to the ground and broke her hips. The next attempt was more successful. Photos of Mary suspended in the air have survived decades, and although looking at them today you might think they were Photoshopped, in fact, they are quite real.

3. Black Diamond

The huge Indian elephant, weighing about 18 tons, belonged to the Al G. Barnes circus. He was very naughty, so he was kept chained to the elephant to calm him down while being shown to the public. On October 12, 1929, in Texas, he once again decided to “show character” by wounding his former trainer and killing a woman.

When they finally managed to calm him down, the circus decided that he was too dangerous to take part in the show in the future. At first they tried to poison him, however, the elephant turned out to be overly perceptive. Black Diamond was shot by Hans Nagel, a zoo guard, but at least 60 bullets had to be fired at him before he collapsed to the ground.

2. Hanno

Pope Leo X received Hanno as a gift during his coronation from King Manuel I of Portugal. The Pope loved his pet very much and often showed him to those who wished. Hanno was a white elephant with a pink tint, and to this day animals of this color are considered sacred in Southeast Asian culture.

Two years later, Hanno suddenly became ill. Again, due to the poor understanding of medicine at the time, the elephant was fed a laxative containing gold particles and died on June 8, 1516. The Pope's heart was broken.

1. Tyke

By 1994, technological media were sufficiently advanced to record the elephant's rampage for posterity. Indeed, several video cameras were running on August 20 during the Hawthorn Circus performance. During the show, a 20-year-old elephant named Tyke, known for her restless character, to put it mildly, threw a tantrum.

In front of hundreds of horrified witnesses, she killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and then went on a rampage through the city streets. The horrified crowd quickly dispersed, leaving several people with varying degrees of injuries. Freed from the nets, dressed in a bright red headdress, Tyke stormed the streets of the city.

A man named Steve Hirano tried to put an end to the riot by closing the parking gate, but this did not stop the furious elephant. Steve's life was saved by the police, who began shooting into the air to scare her. However, the restless elephant had to be calmed down only by emptying all the clips into her.

After more than 80 bullets, Tyke finally gave up. She fell onto the road and died from massive damage to her nervous system and a cerebral hemorrhage. Surely many of you have seen footage from the scene, it is truly a shocking sight.