Pachyderm Painting: Trick or Treat?

This one really got the troops in arms one night after dinner. "It's a trick, it's a trick!" some insisted, as though it threatened their place at the top of the food chain. Yes the flower at the end is what breaks the "illusion" but is that a dismissal of the feat itself? The thoughtful precision with which this elephant places the brush, and retraces its strokes, is clearly an act of imagination.

Would a non-captive animal be found painting itself on the Serengeti Plane? Doubtful. But even if a mahout's barbed ankhous prods the elephant on off screen, it's hard to deny the inner creativity of this creature.