[vnathan]

The Legend of the Thai Water Elephant says that high in the mountainous waterways of Thailand there exist packs of tiny elephants, which spend their entire lives paddling in Muddy streams which are hidden in the dense jungle. They are no more than an inch tall, and are said to be deadly due to their poisonous tusks. These tusks are said to be filled with enough venom to kill a man even long after the little animal's death. Only experienced hunters are able to sneak up on the miniature elephants in the wild, as only their tiny trunks are visible poking above the waters surface. Unwary travelers that cross the paths of these mini-pachyderms usually die, therefore, it is said, that the unfortunates who stumble across one in the wild don't live to tell the tale. Additionally, the little elephants are notoriously hard to maintain in captivity and usually die within a few hours, or days, of their capture. From time to time, the tiny Mummified remains of these creatures surface in the hands of Burmese traders, Thai markets and obscure shops in the region.

Due to their extreme rarity, and place in traditional Thai legend, these elephants reportedly have sold among private collectors for up to 3 million Baht (Thai currency) which is the equivalent of approximately 78,000.00 dollars.

[St. Geno]

Interesting but I dont know if I believe it

[vnathan]

I couldnt either....but I saw a documentary on TV where they MRI scan these mummified artifacts and it showed a clear skeleton of these miniature creatures.

Baffling!

[Faline]

good post nate

[bdjackass318]

it looks to fully developed to be a fetus but i to am skeptical. would be cool to see one alive. who knows.

[Gh007]

Im voting fetus, much more sensible explanation is to trying to exploit/sell having a fetus and building a mythology to sell to tourists.

[vnathan]

Its not a fetus.....only embryos would be of that size and embryos do not have a developed skeletal structure or TUSKS.

THIS is an elephant fetus.

[Gh007]

Maybe, I don't dismiss any idea unless its purely impossible, I mean it plausible I guess.

[Black Knight]

Very cool and I do hope it's true. There are still new species being discovered today all over the world, many in hard to access places.

[kellyhound]

Hard to believe.
This is what i found:

I have to admit that this was so obscure I couldn't find anything about it in any of my regular cryptozoological resources. However, snooping around the web I seem to have found out that this creature falls into the same category as the "jackolope:" a quite normal creature in life that has been altered by taxidermy to be something quite unusual in death. In the case of the jackolope, a deceased rabbit is altered by giving it the antlers of a deer.

In the case of the "Thai Water Elephant" it sounds like the perpetrators have started with a shrew. A shrew is a small mouse-like mammal with a long pointed snout, making it already vaguely elephant shaped. The taxidermist does his work removing and adding bones and flesh in different places (for example, apparently the front legs bones below the knees are removed and shaped into the tusks). In the end the hoaxer has something that looks like a tiny elephant. These can then be sold in the tourist trade as novelties. Although several have shown up on Ebay with prices running in the thousands, apparently they can be acquired from street vendors in Burma for a reasonable price.

The story of the water elephant goes back at least to the 1800's. It is said that they spend their lives in the water and that their tusks carry venom that can kill a man (this part of the story might have some basis in fact as the shrew is one of the few mammal that are poisonous). Only experienced hunters are able to capture them, which is why they are so rare and expensive (at least that is how the story is told by the curiosity shop owner that wishes to sell you one). It is not clear whether the story of a water elephant has any place in traditional folklore, or if it was simply invented after the first hoaxer discovered he could turn a dead, worthless shrew into a rare, valuable water elephant and need a story to go along with it.