Unrivalled miracle of nature

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 9

Unrivalled miracle of nature

(By

DAVID GUNSTON)

When the famous Japanese biologist, Dr Yachiko Sawa, was asked recently what he considered the most wonderful thing (not creature) in all nature, he replied, “An elephant’s trunk.”

With that view the German naturalist. Dr Wolfdietrich Kuhme, would certainly agree. For he has spent a great deal of time studying the strange extended nose, or prehensile snout, of the African elephant, in particular the trunk-twisting communications constantly indulged in by these beasts, whether they live in the bush—or in zoos.

A massively overgrown, reticulated hose-pipe of fatty tissue and mucous-lined muscle, plentifully endowed with nerve-endings and clothed in a many-wrinkled outer collar of tough but incredibly flexible elephant thick skin, the trunk is indeed a marvel of nature.

Through it the elephant breathes, smells, sucks up water to drink (afterwards squirting it into an open mouth, to avoid choking), handles all its food, signals and communicates with other elephants, defends itself, attacks—even at times seems to think.

When wild elephants are at rest around mid-day, quietly belching away in their characteristically flatulent way, their trunks usually hang down limply and at ease.

Aggressive pose A slight alarm, however, and the trunk will be raised, the higher the more anxious its owner becomes. When feeling on the defensive, the elephant rolls up his trunk, Swiss-roll fashion, sometimes stuffing the lipped tip into his mouth, for all the world like a shy, thumbsucking toddler. In times of possible danger, when the elephant wants to impress, indeed to over-awe a potential enemy.

the trunk is curled up and held over the back of the head. The next aggressive stage in elephantine trunkplay is for the organ to be swung out rigidly, like a slightly-upturned spear: this signals an imminent frontal attack.

When standing around in their family herds, however, elephants use their trunks constantly to feel, caress, reassure and communicate with each other. Trunk movement has very many complicated meanings, according to Dr Kuhme, not least in expressing the social status of the herd. Always the stronger animal has the right to be the first to extend his stiffened trunk towards the weaker one’s mouth as a sign of dominance. But the most complex and beautiful trunk movements, snake-like in their smooth gracefulness and intertwining complexity, are reserved for preliminary loveplay before mating.

Mysterious gland Always the elephant’s trunk is its chief means of communication. Especially interesting, too, is the way adult elephants seem to reassure, or perhaps to revivify themselves with their trunks before deciding on a course of action, particularly an aggressive one. Between an elephant's /small eye and massive ear lies a mysterious small gland, folded in the skin. From time to time this exudes a pungent tarry substance, thought to relate to the animal’s seasonal breeding cycle, but when a major decision is pending up swings the trunk, to one or both of these temporal glands, as they are called, presumably to obtain an enlivening sniff at its aroma or stimulating vapour. Whether this makes the elephant a kind of selfproduced drug addict, dependent upon a heady whiff of some strange narcotic, is not clear. But scientists have drawn a comparison with the way north of England millgirls have been known to

have a quick sniff at sweatladen cloth to revive themselves when tired, and most animals (including humans?) seem to find the acrid scent of their own sweat stimulating in some way. For in spite of all our knowledge and admiration, an elephant’s trunk, unrivalled miracle of nature, has still not yielded up all its secrets.