User blog comment:GSFB/Hannibal vs Zombies/@comment-3168561-20120728122356/@comment-5232784-20120728202756

Wassboss: Not necessarily true. Though the Brooksian Zombie (Max Brooks "The Zombie Survival Guide, the Z War) do terrify most if not all animals, this does not hold necessarily true for every movie and literature version. Plus, elephants live alongside far larger, more powerful predators than zombies (Lion), and predators that, like Zombies, travel in numbers (Hyenas, Lions). True, Zombies move in far larger packs than either animal noted, Elephants consider themselves the rulers of the African wilderness, not afraid to face rhinos in combat, and even will force lions away from their kills, sniff the kills, then bury them. Zombies are not strong enough to pierce their hides with a bite (though the elephant's ears, trunk, bottoms of feet (very sensitive. Caltrops where the bane of war elephants), underarms might), and with an elephant trained to not shirk the horrifying climate of human conflict (numerous corpses, vast smell of decay, blood and guts, corpses "moving" due to human and animal ineraction with corpses, being stabbed over and over with arrows to keep them from running an pancking from wounds, etc), Zombies should be no problem.

The ultimate question, when it comes to elephants panicking and zombies, should be as to whether the communal zombie moan would inspire elephants to panic: considering that elephants would be surrounded by moans during and after combat from wounded and dying troops and in some cases civilians without panicking, there's a good chance that they won't panic when hearing the all-disturbing Zombie moan, at the very least for a considerable time.

Plus, elephants where made drunk before fighting (this made the elephants more ferocious, more savage and cruel in battle), and we all know what happens to guys when drunk (caution is not as quickly adhered to, if at all, and you can feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof: elephants would no doubt feel the same, also not adhere as much to caution (thus making it harder to spook them) and can indeed reach 10 feet tall and, perhaps with earliest guns, were bullet-proof!).