In this experiment, the question that was asked was, are elephants afraid of mice? The hypothesis is if a mouse is placed near an elephant, then the elephant will be frightened. The experimenters traveled to an African safari to perform the experiment with their test subjects (an African elephant and a white mouse). They hid the mouse in elephant dung and rolled over the dung whenever elephants passed by. At first there was speculation that the elephants might have been startled by the moving dung. But, after retesting the experiment they realized that was not the case. Only the presence of the mouse seem to stop the elephant in their tracks. The independent variables in this experiment were the methods (such as the elephant dung, the string, the mouse) used as well as the breed of the elephant and mouse. The dependent …show more content…
I thought it was good idea to place the dung in a common area that elephants passed. It was also good that they retested the experiment when there were speculations about whether or not it was the rolling over of the dung that startled the elephant and not the mouse. I agree with the conclusion that elephants are afraid of mice. I agree with the conclusion made based on the results of the experiment. I believe that this experiment did an adequate job of testing certain questions that many people have about the “myth” behind the large majestic animals and the tiny mice. If I could have done this experiment, I would have probably move the elephant and mouse to large closed area. Perhaps a room, I would then place the elephant in the room with the mouse. That way the results would be clearer because there would be no outside distractions that could deter the accuracy of the results. Some future research questions that could arise from this study are: what makes elephants afraid of mice? Another question could be, does the elephant’s fear of mice stem from poor eyesight or is it purely