If you've been around the PHP community for any length of time, there's a pretty good chance you've seen the language's "mascot" floating around - the elePHPant. This mascot has even been made into a stuffed toy in various colors - blue, red, yellow and now thanks to [php]architect, orange.

Ready to add, or start, your collection of elePHPants? We started a KickStarter campaign to produce a run of Orange elephants. [...] There’s much more information over at our Kickstarter project. The campaign is set to a short timeframe and ends on February 3rd as we need to get our production order placed as soon as possible. So get over there and claim your orange elePHPant before time runs out!

The Kickstarter campaign, originally fully funded at $1,000 USD has now reached an amazing $16,000+ USD. There are still plenty of spots left open if you want to pledge and get in on this purchase. Options range from a simple $1 USD for support all the way out to a $250 USD option that gets you a "zoo" (ten small elePHPants and one large elePHPant).

On 7PHP.com today, they've posted an interview with Vincent Pontier about a few different things including how the elePHPant stuffed toys came about.

You cannot be a true fan of The PHP Community and a programmer with PHP in your heart, if you haven’t heard of the magical, mystical and elegant PHP mascot that is coined as and known famously and passionately as ele.. PHP.. wait for it!: The elePHPant! If you are part of The Community, you probably already knew how it was created since the creator of the elePHPant answered it in his movie. But! Do you actually know why it was created and where the idea of creating it came from? And do you actually know Elroubio himself?

While the original interview was in French, it's written up in English to reach a wider audience (it's also in its original French at the end of the post). They talk about some of Vincent's background, where the idea for the elePHPant originally came from, what he thinks of the current status of the elePHPants.

If you've been around the PHP community for any length of time, chances are you've seen the ElePHPant stuffed animals that have been floating around conferences and living on developers' desks. Well, the Zend Framework has decided to create some of their own - a more green variety. Pádraic Brady has posted about them.

Blue PHP ElePHPant plush toys are so yesterday. Ben Scholzen (you might know him as DASPRiD on IRC/Twitter) is now taking pre-orders for green Zend Framework ElePHPants. Yes, they are green. Yes, they have “ZF” printed on them. No, they are not a repository of Zend Framework knowledge. We tried really hard, but Intel insists that magical toys from the future are not real. Ben needs to reach a minimum production order of 1000 small ZF ElePHPants and is currently hovering at around 200 after the weekend. If you, your user group, or your pet poodle want one of these, visit Ben’s pre-order page for more information.

As of the time of this post, the orders for these elePHPants is at about 190 out of the 1000 needed, so if you'd like to pick some up, get over and put in your pre-order now!

The team that has brought you the infamous PHP ElePHPants in the past is back with another round - the 6th generation of the cuddly PHP mascot in both traditional blue and pink.

April 19, 2011 PHPère is happy to show you the first pictures of two premature elePHPant the 6th generation of PHP. As you can see ... ElePHPant the blue, is in great shape and has found its new home very pleasant

These are shots of the first turnouts of this latest batch and the rest will follow in June/July of this year. Those that have already ordered them will be contacted soon and, if you're interested in picking up some of your own, send them an email for complete instructions.

So you've seen all of the pictures of the elePHPants floating around and want to get your hands on one of your very own? Good news! Damien Seguy and crew have another fresh batch of huggable blue PHPness on the way and you can place your order now:

If you have missed the boat of the first generation of elePHPants, now is the right time to catchup up and participate to the 2008 generation! As for the first generation, this project is open to every PHP User group and aficionados, that want to adopt elePHPants, small or big.

Pricing is 4 Euros per elephant (in a 50 count box only) or 50 Euro for one of the larger elephants. They're even open to having company logos ("your own brood") added to the other side of his back. You can find more details on getting your hands on one at this page on the Nexen.net website or just head right to the order form to get a little blue PHPer to call your own.

To help "sweeten the deal" a bit and encourage you to give towards the causes that the PHP Women are trying to accomplish, they're offering a special little bonus for those who donate at a certain level:

Cal Evans from the Zend DevZone - being the awesome guy that he is - has graciously offered to mail out to the first 10 people who donate to PHPWomen $50 or more, a PHP elePHPant. Yep - you get one of the hard to find and much sought after plushy PHP elePHPants.

You can find out more about the goals for their fund raising in this other post to the PHPWomen.org blog as well as information on submitting whatever you feel like donating (time or money).

Damien Seguy and company have developed a brand new plush toy based around the PHP elephant idea set out by Vincent Pontier a while back:

The elephant is a community project. It was started as a crazy idea that I used to suggest to a number of people. I managed to draw a lot of happy smile, but I suspect that half this happiness was due to sheer craziness of the project. [...] Of course, it was impossible to prototype this mascot without involving Vincent Pontier. The rest is history. We started prototyping, and within a month, we got this excellent looking plush toy (we'll tell you about the manufacturer once we get the full load of them).

Check out the post on Nexen.net for lots of product shots (including the obligatory cute kid shot) and details on how it was developed and the answer to the important question - where you can get your hands on one.

Some groups have already ordered a large number of them for themselves and their members, but an online shop is coming soon to Nexen.net where you can pick up your own fuzzy bit of PHPness.

Damien Seguy and company have developed a brand new plush toy based around the PHP elephant idea set out by Vincent Pontier a while back:

The elephant is a community project. It was started as a crazy idea that I used to suggest to a number of people. I managed to draw a lot of happy smile, but I suspect that half this happiness was due to sheer craziness of the project. [...] Of course, it was impossible to prototype this mascot without involving Vincent Pontier. The rest is history. We started prototyping, and within a month, we got this excellent looking plush toy (we'll tell you about the manufacturer once we get the full load of them).

Check out the post on Nexen.net for lots of product shots (including the obligatory cute kid shot) and details on how it was developed and the answer to the important question - where you can get your hands on one.

Some groups have already ordered a large number of them for themselves and their members, but an online shop is coming soon to Nexen.net where you can pick up your own fuzzy bit of PHPness.