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There is hope that once Osh, a male, arrives at the sanctuary, the 30-year-old pachyderm will reunite with Donna, the zoo’s last remaining female African elephant that was relocated there last year.

The vanishing pachyderm in that metaphor is the question of what Donald Trump will do to American democracy if he again becomes president.

The pachyderms' dung enriches the soil from which the plants grow; similarly, as they feed and go about their day-to-day business, the elephants knock over trees and disperse seeds.

The pachyderm is expected to return to Sri Lanka after treatment, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has said, and animal welfare activists hope he will be sent to a sanctuary.

The pachyderm rituals would not have seemed out of place at a human funeral: Some stood in quiet order while observing Tolstoy's remains, and others gently touched his body with their trunks.