Fact Explained: Why do elephant have such a heavy and large trunk?

Posted on 16th Sep 2020

Post Category: Animal Science

Why do elephant have such a heavy and large trunk? What evolutionary benefits this awkward long organ offers?

• After its body's incredible size, most unique feature an elephant has is its trunk.
• It is an ancient tool, developed 30 million years ago as an attenuation of nose and upper tip.
• It is the answer to the problem of how a large, plant-eating animal is to reach its food, the elephant's heavy head, which supports the massive tusks, ruled out the option, taken by the giraffe family, of broadening the neck.
• The elephant's ancestors picked a different evolutionary ploy: If you can't bring your mouth to the food, then find a way to bring the food to your mouth.

• For sheer versatility, the elephant's trunk is a recise manipulative organs that matches the arms, legs and tails of any flat faced animal on the planet.
• It serves as a hand to pull up grass by the roots, strip the bark from trees, help younger brother pull out of the mud, or seize a twig to scratch between one's shoulder blades.
• Its 'lip' on the tip can pluck a berry off a bush or pick up a pebble. Indian elephant has single 'lip' unlike the African, which has double, (see picture below.)

• Lifted high, the trunk's sensitive olfactory tissues give alert of danger hundreds of yards away.
• The trunk stores up to liters of water for pouring down a parched throat or showering over a sun- seared areas of its body.