Observation: Tender Baby Elephant Embraces Humans, Warm Moments Melt Online Audiences
Baby elephants have been winning hearts on the internet with their playful and affectionate interactions with humans. A viral video, shared by the @amazingnature account, shows a baby elephant attempting to sit on a chair like a human, while another video features the young elephant giving a "hug" to two people.
But what drives these adorable displays of affection? According to experts, baby elephants' behavior is rooted in their natural curiosity, playfulness, and social bonding instincts.
Their trunks, highly sensitive organs, are used for exploration and communication. Baby elephants touch others with their trunks to gather information and express reassurance. This trunk-based contact is essential for social bonding within their herds and can extend to humans they are comfortable with [2][4][5].
Young elephants engage in playful behavior to build trust and learn social skills. Their playful curiosity can manifest as reaching out, touching, and even hugging-like actions when they feel safe and trusting around humans [4][5].
Elephants are highly social and emotionally complex animals. Baby elephants often display gentleness and comfort-seeking behavior, which sometimes leads to affectionate contact with humans, especially if the humans respond calmly and positively [1].
However, it's important to note that these behaviors do not imply complex human-like emotions of "cuteness." Instead, they reflect their tactile communication, exploration, trust-building, and social bonding patterns [1][2][4][5].
One comment on the viral video reads, "They are like toddlers in giant bodies. That trunk hug is everything." Another user commented, "It's so cute how the baby elephant does not have any clue how big it is."
The viral videos have received hundreds of comments from social media users, with one user stating, "Just when I thought today was awful, this video came along and healed my heart." Another user asked, "Do baby elephants realise how gigantic they are?"
As of the last update, the videos have garnered over one million views each. The videos are a testament to the endearing and playful nature of baby elephants, captivating audiences worldwide.
These endearing displays of affection from baby elephants seen in viral videos align with their natural curiosity, playfulness, and social bonding instincts, which are common in home-and-garden animals too. As their lifestyle mirrors that of domesticated pets like dogs and cats, they too exhibit tactile communication and playful behavior with humans they trust, creating strong bonds.
