Puff Puff No Pass: 'Pothead' Elephant 'Smoking' in Wild Stuns Netizens - Video

New Delhi (Sputnik): While smokers around the world find respite in blowing puffs of highly addictive tobacco or nicotine to de-stress themselves, despite the health hazard, only chimpanzees and monkeys are known to develop such habits in the animal kingdom, and even then just in rare cases.

It seems like some animals also have a hard time getting rid of smoking habits: a video going viral on social media shows an elephant in India that appears to be blowing puffs of smoke and it is leaving users baffled as well as amused at the same time.  

Smoking elephant. Jumbo decides to take a puff😳

This behaviour still remains a puzzle. It could be that she was picking up the burnt charcoal from forest floor, blowing away the ash with trunk & consuming the rest.

This might be acting as a laxative.
Superb intelligence.
🎬WSC pic.twitter.com/xPr3ZPuPse

— Susanta Nanda IFS (@susantananda3) May 16, 2020

It turns out that the video was shot in 2016 in Nagarhole Forest in Karnataka state by the Wildlife Conservation Society (India). Scientists stated that the elephant was ingesting wood charcoal and blowing away the ash that came along with it. However, they were uncertain of the reason why the elephant was blowing the ashes.