Lithuanian DeviantARTist saulinis and Worth1000 contributor minouz both used their photoshop skillz to demonstra that elephants make unexpectedly awesome butterflies.

[via enpundit]

Amit Drori and Tel Aviv-based designer Noam Dover created an awesome menagerie of robotic animal sculptures, which are powered by servo motors and remote-controlled by puppeteers, for theatrical production entitled Savanna, A Possible Landscape, which premiered in 2011.

Head over to Laughing Squid to watch a couple short videos of the production.

Photos by Noam Dover and Michal Cederbaum

This awesome mural, entitled Elephants, is an astonishing and enormous piece created by artist Adonna Khare using only carbon pencil. After more than 47,000 voters cast 412,560 votes, Elephants was recently pronounced the winning piece of ArtPrize 2012. Adonna Khare, who is also an elementary school art teacher turned stay-at-home mom, took home the $200,000 grand prize.

“A week before the September 19th opening of ArtPrize, Khare brought in her 8-feet tall by 35-feet wide drawing Elephants and put it up on the wall of the museum. During the event, she continued to add to her piece, even spilling over on the museum’s walls. She purposely set up her drawing as a triptych, “to engage the viewers in the transformation of the work.” At the end, after more than three weeks, the stunning drawing grew to be 13-feet tall by 40-feet wide. (You can see completed photos of the mural on Adonna Khare’s Facebook page or on her website.)”

If you’re in the area of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Elephants is currently still on exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. 

[via My Modern Metropolis]

Meet Motala, a 50 year old elephant from Thailand who lost her front left leg in 1999 after stepping on a land mine left over from ongoing conflicts along the Thai-Myanmar border. When the accident occurred Motala was a working elephant who moved trees for a living. She was simply foraging for food in the forest when she stepped on the mine.

Although her owners tried to save poor Motala’s leg, the limb was so badly damaged that it eventually had to be amputated below the knee. It wasn’t until 2006 that she was able to receive her first artificial leg. It was only a temporary solution, but she successfully learned to walk on it. In 2009 Motala received her first permanent prosthesis, made for her at the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) elephant hospital in the Mae Yao National Reserve in Thailand. Because prosthetic legs must be changed according to weight, Motala has been given other legs accordingly and received a new one last year, her third.

A documentary entitled The Eyes of Thailand shows the amazing moment when Motala took her first few steps on her first prosthetic leg. Check out incredibly moving video of that awesome moment here.

For more information on this topic check out the documentary The Eyes of Thailand. (watch a trailer here)

[via The Huffington Post and enpundit]