The reading and the lecture both discuss several behaviors of elephants. The author of the reading feels that the three features of elephants are fascinating and extraordinary. However, the lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. He is of the opinion that these three features are faulty.

To begin with, the author argues that elephants are aware of their death when they are getting weak. The article mentions that there are places called graveyards where contain a lot of bones of elder elephants are discovered by the river. This specific argument is challenged by the lecture. He claims that the reason elephants break away from herds and head to regions close to rivers is their teeth are degraded when getting older and they have to find tender grass that grows near the river, then dead in that area.

Secondly, the author suggests that elephants can use their trunks to represent objects by painting. Moreover, the article says that elephants are observed painting flowers, other fellows, and even themselves. The lecturer rebuts this mentioning that elephants’ artistic behavior is the result of being trained. He elaborates on this by bringing up the point that elephants’ ears are extremely sensitive, and humans leverage this to tame and train them to be able to paint.

Finally, the author notes that elephants are fear of mice. In the article, it is stated that a scientific experiment shows that when elephants encounter mice in the wild, they tend to leave that area and try to avoid extra contact with mice. The lecturer reasons this phenomenon to the unfamiliarity with the mice. It is the shared instinct among all creatures that is to avoid getting in touch with unfamiliar things and keeping a safe distance from them. Furthermore, the lecturer posits that both in the zoo and the wild, elephants are not afraid of mice at all after getting familiar with them.