The morons of Facebook are at it again, and this time it’s the even bigger idiots at MSN who have been hoodwinked.
The baby elephant who sheds tears thing — did you read it? Did some imbecile from your Facebook page send you the article? Did all of your friends and their friends share in the sad moment with stupid and maudlin comments? Of course — no need to lie about it. Shit happens and you get suckered in — that doesn’t make you a complete moron….or does it?
Okay so this elephant was born in China and it was “rejected by its mother” — yes that’s true. The baby elephant was so sad that he shed tears — not really true and especially not true for the reasons the stupid face book share story says.
“Elephants have two long tubes on either side of their heads that go from the corner of their eyes to the tip of their trunks.” said Dr. Wilhelm Thiess, a German vetrinarian who was a student of the great veterinary surgeon Dr. Carmine Nazzaro of Rome Italy.
“These tubes are called the “nasal lacrimal ducts” and they serve to drain off excess fluids in the eye. Humans have these too. That’s why your nose runs when you cry, You know the routine — cry — sniffle — cry — sniffle?”
Anyway, the baby elephant’s tears were not tears of sadness, they were tears that are constantly shed but never seen because they come out at the tip of the trunk where they either get sucked up with water or food or they evaporate into the air.
Since the baby elephant was not nursing off of his mother, he did not get a strong immunity he should have gotten from her first milk (colostrum) and this resulted in a minor infection that clogged the duct. With both ducts clogged, it maked the baby elephant look like he is crying. He is not. He does not know his mother because she refused to bond with him. That is not unusual with elephants and this is nothing new or pitiful. It’s sad when it happens in the wild and the baby has to search for a mom who will take him, but this is in a zoo — he’s fine and as happy as any baby elephant.
