‘Smoke breathing’ elephant thanks JCB for helping it get out of a hole

It looks to me that this elephant turns and thanks the JCB for helping him get out of the muddy hole in which he trapped. He head butts the machine but I can only believe that this was a friendly gesture before turning and jogging off.

There is an unusual incident before the elephant turns and departs. He emits a cloud of smoke or steam from their mouth, it seems. What is this? The scientists are baffled by a similar incident in another video:

Note: These are videos from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

However, in this incident the elephant picks up what looks like ash from the ground and puts it in his mouth before blowing it out. That seems to be some sort of medicinal therapy to improve oral health. They think the elephant was washing their mouth with charcoal which has toxic binding properties. However, in first video I don’t see the elephant picking up anything from the ground. It is very strange. I see this as the elephant thanking the JCB in the belief that it is not a machine but a living creature which helped him. It seems to be some sort of signal, a form of communication.

It also seems to me that these are two distinct forms of ‘smoke breathing’. It may have a multi-purpose: one to communicate and the other for health reasons.

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Speciesism - 'them and us' | Cruelty - always shameful

Elephant thanks JCB for helping her. Screenshot.

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