Whether or not it’s possible to teach an old elephant new tricks, a 34-year-old pachyderm at Zoo Atlanta has recently taught researchers a thing or two about how elephants suck up food and water with their trunks.
For one thing, an elephant doesn’t use its trunk as a simple straw.
The surprise finding came courtesy of detailed measurements during feeding time, says Andrew Schulz, a mechanical engineer at the Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Other than aquatic creatures, not many animals other than elephants use a type of suction feeding that doesn’t depend on lung power alone.
Elephants are the only living land animals to evolve a long, boneless appendage like a trunk, says Schulz. A septum stretching the length of the trunk separates it into two nostrils. But detailed knowledge of what happens inside that muscular structure during feeding has been sorely lacking. So Schulz and his colleagues worked with zookeepers at Zoo Atlanta to take a peek.
For one thing, an elephant doesn’t use its trunk as a simple straw.
The surprise finding came courtesy of detailed measurements during feeding time, says Andrew Schulz, a mechanical engineer at the Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Other than aquatic creatures, not many animals other than elephants use a type of suction feeding that doesn’t depend on lung power alone.
Elephants are the only living land animals to evolve a long, boneless appendage like a trunk, says Schulz. A septum stretching the length of the trunk separates it into two nostrils. But detailed knowledge of what happens inside that muscular structure during feeding has been sorely lacking. So Schulz and his colleagues worked with zookeepers at Zoo Atlanta to take a peek.
