What animals stand behind Jawed Karim in "Me at the zoo"?

Two elephants stand behind Jawed Karim in “Me at the zoo,” the first publicly available video uploaded to YouTube.

Karim appears at the San Diego Zoo in a 19-second clip uploaded on April 23, 2005. He briefly comments on the elephants’ long trunks while his high-school friend Yakov Lapitsky records him. The video’s ordinary, informal style later became a symbol of YouTube’s user-generated origins.

“Me at the zoo” was not a polished launch trailer. Its simplicity helped establish the idea that YouTube was a place for everyday people to share short videos, rather than only a distribution service for professional media.

The answer is sometimes confused with other zoo animals because the clip is remembered more for its historic importance than its content. The animals visible behind Karim are specifically elephants, at the San Diego Zoo in California.