Wildlife

Puffing Pachyderm

Wildlife experts say they are baffled at footage captured of an Asian elephant “smoking” in a southern Indian forest — a behavior never seen before.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society filmed the female pachyderm at Nagarhole National Park picking up lumps of charcoal with its truck, placing them in its mouth and exhaling with a large plume of ash.

In a self-medicating behavior known as zoopharmacognosy, the elephant could have been using the charcoal as a laxative since it is plentiful in the forest after wildfires or lightning strikes, researchers say.