Elephants are friggin' cool!

Take a look:



If the elephant recognizes the elephant that he paints as an elephant, than that means that he is able to make the connection between reality and symbol. Of course, this ability to make symbolic connections has already been demonstrated by the fact that elephants can be trained to respond to words.

Dogs also have this ability. Dogs that have been sufficiently trained can accurately identify various items by the words that their trainers use to identify them (i.e. they know the difference between "get your ball!" and "get your bunny!"). It's actually pretty cool.