If the Discovery of a Pink Elephant in Botswana is Rare, Why Do We See Elephants Depicted as Pink So Often?

Last week, a rare occasion occurred in the African country of Botswana: a pink baby elephant was serendipitously spotted with its mother and subsequently filmed. If pink elephants are so rare, then why do we see depictions of them so often?

Before the question is answered, here’s a little more background on pink elephants. The pink elephant found in Botswana is more accurately described as a rare albino elephant, one of only three to have been officially recorded in Africa. More albino elephants are thought to have historically existed among Asia’s elephant species (also sometimes referred to as white elephants), although this occurrence is also a rarity. An albino in Sri Lanka was the first to be officially recorded among the Asian elephant species, and just recently in 2004. According to Wikipedia, “although often depicted as snow white, their skin is normally a soft reddish-brown, turning a light pink when wet.”

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So why are pink elephants depicted so often if they are not actually common in the wild? The answer might seem odd, but the famous author Jack London and the Disney movie Dumbo are the most likely culprits.

In 1913, Jack London first used the phrase “pink elephant” to describe a state of hallucination undergone by someone who is incredibly drunk. In his book John Barleycorn, London wrote specifically that “the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers.”

Disney next gets credit for popularizing the idea of pink elephants more visually. In a famous musical number from the 1941 movie Dumbo, pink elephants sing and dance to a tune known as “pink elephants on parade.” Dumbo hallucinates this odd event after accidentally drinking some spiked water from a bucket. The scene is memorable for being scary for children, and also for being otherwise odd.

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So there you have it. It’s hard to estimate Dumbo’s worldwide audience over nearly 70 years, but my guess is that it has been huge. Today you can get a good feel of how much variety there is in how pink elephants are depicted by taking a look on Flickr. A quick search yields photos of pink elephant inspired costumes, hot air balloons (see photo above), statues, signs, quilts, cakes, jewelry, graffiti, chalk artwork, and of course, stuffed animals.

Photo Credit: Laertes on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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