Elephants are artists! Whether at a zoo, on the Internet, or on television, you've probably seen one of these awesome, hulking pachyderms wield a paintbrush.

Zookeepers commonly consider the activity a win-win: Humans get to see the animals showing off their cognitive and artistic abilities, and the elephants get to engage in an activity that enriches their lives in captivity.

But wait, hold the phone, do elephants even enjoy painting? As it turns out, nobody has ever explored that question scientifically. Until now, that is.

In a new study published in PeerJ, Megan English, Gisela Kaplan, and Lesley Rogers, all based out of Centre for Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour at the University of New England in Australia, detail their efforts to discern whether or not elephants truly derive tangible benefits from painting. The trio found paltry evidence that they do.

English, Kaplan, and Rogers spent four months observing the behavior of four elephants at the Melbourne Zoo. The animals routinely paint in front of a live audience every week.

Obviously, the team couldn't simply ask the elephants whether or not they like painting, so instead, the trio of scientists watched to see whether the pachyderms' behavior markedly changed on the days where they painted compared to the days where they didn't. Painting is considered a form of enrichment, so theoretically there should be a reduction in stress-related and non-interactive behaviors like weaving or pacing and an increase in positive and social behaviors like playing and ear-flapping.

Overall, there wasn't. One elephant -- by far the eldest at 33 years -- did display increased non-interactive behavior on days where she didn't paint, but the other elephants did not. Of note, the elephants showed reduced stress-related behavior on the mornings before they painted, but the researchers later learned that was because the keepers chose the least-stressed individuals to do it.

"A key purpose of including enrichment activities for captive animals is to at least reduce stress-related behaviour as well as encourage natural behaviour and stimulate the animals. The activity of painting does not appear to address this need adequately," the researchers wrote.

A key drawback of the study is that it was conducted on only four females at a single zoo. With such a limited sample size, it could easily be argued that the differences in behavior merely reflect that elephants are unique, cognitively complex animals with distinct personalities. Some may enjoy painting, while others might not.

But the authors contend that zoos should provide their own evidence that painting improves the lives of elephants before encouraging them to do it. If there isn't any, then they should provide the animals with other, more beneficial activities.

"Our results suggest that painting does not improve the welfare of elephants and that its main benefit is the aesthetic appeal of these paintings to the public and their subsequent sale of which a percentage of funds might be donated toward conservation of the species."

Source: English M, Kaplan G, Rogers LJ. (2014) Is painting by elephants in zoos as enriching as we are led to believe? PeerJ 2:e471 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.471