{"id":24225,"date":"2023-01-24T16:37:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T15:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=73520"},"modified":"2023-01-24T20:37:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:37:29","slug":"how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk\/","title":{"rendered":"How the elephant got its trunk"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stuart Blackman\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

An elephant<\/a>\u2019s trunk is a remarkable organ capable of feats of both strength and precision: it can lift logs weighing more than 300kg; it can also remove a peanut from its shell, blow the shell away and transfer the nut to the mouth.<\/p>\n

Containing tens of thousands of individual muscles (many more than in the entire human body), the trunk is also equipped with the nasal equivalent of opposable thumbs, in the form of the \u2018trunk tip fingers\u2019 (Asian elephants<\/a> have one, African elephants<\/a>, two).<\/p>\n

More related content:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Asian elephant guide: where they\u2019re found, how long they live, and how they\u2019re different from African elephants<\/a><\/p>\n

New study reveals how cancer-busting gene in elephants works<\/a><\/p>\n

Best elephant gifts: 7 elephant-themed present ideas you can\u2019t resist<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

So how did the elephant get its trunk?<\/h2>\n

One theory goes that, by gathering food while the mouth focuses on chewing, it enables the ingestion of the disproportionately large volumes of food required by bigger animals.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps it arose alongside the development of tusks, which prevent elephants getting close to their food with their mouth alone.<\/p>\n

The elephant\u2019s trunk might even have started out as a snorkel in a semi-aquatic ancestor. This seems more plausible when you consider that elephants\u2019 closest living relatives are the fully-aquatic manatees and dugongs.<\/p>\n

All that can really be said for certain is that it\u2019s not the result of a tug of war with a duplicitous crocodile<\/a> on \u201cthe banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main image: An elephant\u2019s trunk is used for grabbing food. \u00a9\u00a0CarlFourie\/Getty <\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am An elephant\u2019s trunk is a remarkable organ capable of feats of both strength and precision: it can lift logs weighing more than 300kg; it can also remove a peanut from its shell, blow the shell away and transfer the nut to the mouth. Containing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24226,"template":"","categories":[1,22],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/how-the-elephant-got-its-trunk-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am An elephant\u2019s trunk is a remarkable organ capable of feats of both strength and precision: it can lift logs weighing more than 300kg; it can also remove a peanut from its shell, blow the shell away and transfer the nut to the mouth. Containing…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}