In addition, they are habituating elephants to charge vehicles, which they will continue to do once they leave the national park with the beginning of the rains.

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Sturdy as elephants, they are a fixture of the Indian landscape.

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' Furry little dassie (rock hyrax) scurry along the forest floor - incongruously, the animal's closest relatives are elephants, though they look more like overgrown guinea pigs.

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They have created, for example, an educational puppet show, illustrating, among other horrors, the dangers of distilling alcohol when there are elephants about: they are boozers as well as gourmands.

ECONOMIST: The battle to conserve India's elephants

Plants that are symbiotic with ants can be found in other parts of the world, especially Central and South America, where there are no elephants, but large herbivores lived before they became extinct.

BBC: Ants work with acacia trees to prevent elephant damage

The irritation is not diminished by the fact that the city council recently spent two weeks debating whether circus elephants should be allowed into the city (they are badly treated, said the opponents).

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In fable elephants are afraid of mice, but in reality they seem to be more afraid of insects.

BBC: Ants work with acacia trees to prevent elephant damage

They are also believed to be behind the killing of at least 30 elephants in the Central African Republic since January 1.

CNN: Cameroon elephant slaughter latest in string of killings

Usually, elephants produce much deeper sounds, sometimes of such a low frequency that they are outside the range of human hearing, and these calls can boom many miles away.

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"The elephants are very domesticated, so I think most are easy to treat because they have been trained by the mahouts, the keepers, " says Lindsjo.

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