When science is coupled with creativity, amazing things can happen. Just look at this Asian elephant named Mosha, who has been given a second shot at mobility with the help of a prosthetic leg.
The three-legged elephant Mosha is a permanent resident of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation hospital in Lampang province in northern Thailand. The pachyderm lost her right foreleg to a land mine on the Burmese border when she was 7 months old.
Mosha's growth has called for frequent repairs to her prosthetic leg. When she lost her leg 10 years ago, she weighed about 1,300 pounds. Mosha now weighs more than 4,000 pounds.
As she grew, it became increasingly difficult for Mosha to be mobile with her three remaining limbs. Thai surgeon Therdchai Jivacate noticed this difficulty and engineered her first prosthetic leg when she was two and a half-year-old. Since then, Mosha has had nine prosthetic legs.
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"The way she walked was unbalanced and her spine was going to bend," Therdchai, 72, told Reuters. "She would have died."
Mosha wasn’t the only lucky elephant to receive a prosthetic leg. Another FAE hospital resident Motola also received a prosthetic leg. She became the second elephant to receive one.
The Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation hospital was the first elephant hospital in the world and has 17 patients.