There is a secret on the elephant's face.
Its famous trunk, full of muscle and without bone, can move in a number of directions and can perform a number of tasks, such as tearing up foliage and removing water and tortilla chips. Engineers and nature lovers alike have been inspired by these abilities.
The trunk is more than just muscle and its abilities may depend on the appendage's skin.
An elephant's trunk stretches more at the top side that faces out than at the bottom side that faces in, according to a study published on Monday.
The trunk is a muscular multitool that can do all these things, but one of the tools that it has in its back pocket is all of the different skins.
As part of a continuing collaboration with Zoo Atlanta, Mr. Schulz and his colleagues challenged two African elephants to extend their trunks to grab food placed far away.
The trunk needs to do a lot of things, but it's simple to reach.
The elephant trunk does not stretch uniformly when viewed on a high-speed camera. The tip extends first followed by the front half of the trunk.
The researchers think this behavior is more energy efficient than moving the whole trunk. If the trunk were divided into quarters, there would be 22 liters of muscle at the base, which would be heavy and energy intensive.
The researchers noticed that things were different on the top and the bottom. The half facing the ground was stretching 15 percent farther than the half facing the outward.
He said that he ran to his adviser's office to show him some of the results because he was so surprised.
The researchers initially thought the top- bottom difference in trunk stretching was an error, but further testing put those doubts to rest.
The skin from the top of the elephant's trunk was 15 percent more elastic than the skin from the bottom.
The functions of the skin correspond to these features. The upper surface of an elephant's trunk needs protection from the sun as well as from other animals, and it has this "flexible armor like Kevlar that has these deep folds that are really, really easily extendable" The underside of the trunk is used for gripping and moving objects but is rarely seen.
A professor at the University of Geneva who has conducted research into the complexity of elephant trunks said that the new study is a good reminder.
Dr. Milinkovitch, who was not involved in the study, said that for engineers to be inspired by elephants, they need to think about the geometry of the wrapping. He said that nobody has yet incorporated this in actualrobots.
There are new possibilities for future robots that can mimic the powers of the elephant's trunk, but it also underscores the importance of preserving the species that knows how to use these instruments.
bioinspiration is great until we don't have any of the animals we are looking for.
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