Trunk Sense

Elephants' peculiar whiskers help them feel the world around them

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WATCHING AN ELEPHANT FORAGE for roots reveals both the strength and the sensitivity of its trunk. With more than 40,000 muscles, an elephant’s trunk can upend a tree and then gently collect the fragments that fell. It takes baby elephants nearly a year to master using their trunk in this way, and it’s taken humans even longer to understand how they’re able to do it. The secret may come down to elephants’ whiskers.

Researchers who analyzed the whiskers lining these animals’ trunks have discovered a unique structural property that helps elephants sense the world around them and determine whether a task calls for strength or sensitivity. In a study published in Science, the authors show that elephants’ whiskers—unlike the whiskers of other mammals—are more flexible at the tip and stiffer closer to the skin.