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Research: Climate change helped elephants evolve a large brain


Elephants have long captivated our attention, partly because of their sheer size and majesty. But we’re also struck by their complex behavior. In some ways, we’re fascinated because this behavior echoes our most humane feelings. For instance, elephants have repeatedly been observed using tools and grieving their dead. Their evolutionary history is interesting, too. It parallels humans’ in many ways. Elephant ancestors originated in Africa, just like ours. Their descendants, among them mammoths, went out of Africa to inhabit other continents. And in the process they evolved the largest brain of any land animal. It weighs around 5kg, while our…

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