German Zoo Treats Elephants to Daily ‘Pedicures’ and It’s Too Cute

Are you a fan of getting pedicures? It's such a treat and something I look forward to once a month. The Cologne Elephant Park in Germany spoils their ten lucky elephants each day with a pedicure, and I have to admit that I'm kind of jealous!

CBS News posted a video on Thursday, March 21st showing zookeepers pampering the huge elephants with pedicures as they enjoyed a snack. As part of their medical training, zookeepers use an angle grinder to shorten the elephants' nails, something that happens for wild elephants naturally as they walk around. It looks like the elephant in the video is really enjoying it!

Commenters enjoyed the CBS News video. @Leigh Anne shared, "When someone asked you what you did at work today, I gave an elephant a pedicure!" @Valerie joked, "My guess is there may be some discussion between them as to who gets to go first… LOL!" and @Adam Holland added, "French tips! Elephants are truly amazing."

Related: Elephants’ Response to Their Favorite Human Coming Home Is a Must-See

Cool Elephant Facts

I agree that elephants are truly amazing and I am fascinated by how emotional they can be; elephants have feelings and display emotions. They also form friendships and bonds with each other. According to UntamedAnimals.com, elephants are one of the Top 6 animals who form real lifelong friendships and that "some elephants show distress when separated from certain but not all herd mates." The same goes for bonding with humans.

To show that they are happy and content, elephants wag their ears. They also trumpet to express happiness. I wonder if they trumpet during their pedicures! Elephants use their trunks for a variety of purposes including picking up objects, trumpeting, greeting, drinking, and bathing. They can even use it as a snorkel when they swim! Two elephants occasionally wrap their trunks around another elephant's, almost like they're hugging each other. African elephants have two ‘fingers’ at the tip of their trunks, but Asian elephants only have one. Their ivory tusks are actually their teeth, and sadly about 90% of African elephants have been wiped out in the past century due to the ivory trade.

Here's an interesting fact from WWF.com: African Savanna (Bush), African Forest and Asian elephants can be told apart just by looking at their ears, "The ears of African elephants are much larger than their cousins and are described as being shaped like the African continent, whereas the ears of Asian elephants are shaped like the Indian subcontinent."

Elephants spend almost all of their time eating grasses, leaves, shrubs, fruits and roots. In fact, adult elephants eat more than 300 pounds of food a day!

Elephants are truly beautiful animals that I love to learn and write about. It would be a dream to get to work with them daily, even if it was just to file their nails!

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