The elephant is undoubtedly one of the icons of the animal world and, among other things, its trunk is one of the parts of the body that, strangely, is most striking to us. The elephant’s trunk is formed by the fusion of its nose with the upper lip and contains 150,000 muscle fascicles without any bone, which allows it great precision in its movements .
In addition to breathing, the tube performs other important functions: smell, touch, eat and drink, make sounds, and interact socially with other individuals and with the environment around them. But, as we will see later, this animal has, in addition to its proboscis, another almost unknown “secret weapon” …
An off-road animal
There are two types of elephant: the African of the genus Loxodonta and the Asian Elephas . Unfortunately, both species are victims of both poaching for ivory for their tusks and the loss of their natural habitat . Its large size requires vast spaces and a lot of food, both increasingly scarce, so that conflicts related to these pachyderms are becoming more frequent.
Luckily, elephants adapt to virtually all habitats and this helps them survive. In Africa, the best known are those that inhabit the plains located in the savannah and open forests of the eastern and southern parts of the continent ( Loxodonta africana africana ). Less well known are those that we find in the jungle ( Loxodonta africana cyclotis ), smaller and not so abundant.
There are also special populations such as the one that inhabits the Namib desert , more precisely in Kunene, in the north of Namibia, one of the last truly “wild” and very inaccessible regions of southern Africa. The area, also known as the Skeleton Coast , due to the remains of sunken ships that populate its coast, has a rich diversity that includes this group of about 350 elephants specially adapted to life in the desert, belonging to the subspecies The. African.
With his ‘canteen’ in tow
Like camels, which possess specialized desert physiological characteristics, these elephants have also developed interesting adaptations that include a wider footprint, longer legs, and smaller bodies. While most elephants need water on a daily basis, these true desert colossi can go up to five days without drinking. To achieve this, these animals have perfected the use of a little-known organ: the pharyngeal bag.
In his “Notes on the Natural History of Ceylon” of 1861, J. Emerson Tennent described that elephants were capable of regurgitating several liters of water and sprinkling it on their bodies, particularly on their ears, which, with their constant beating, are what regulate the temperature of these animals.
The hypothesis of the existence of a special reservoir to retain this water was confirmed by later anatomical studies that indicated the existence of the pharyngeal bag. This organ is located behind the base of the tongue and exists in all elephants. In addition to storing water, its most frequent use is to emit low-pitched sounds.
Kunene elephants use the water in the pharyngeal bag when the temperature rises. This behavior is not easy to observe, in fact it was filmed for the first time in 2008 . The elephants, far from water sources and exposed to a temperature of 45ºC, sprayed their ears with water that they regurgitated from their pharyngeal bags.
The observation of this phenomenon also in southern Africa suggests that elephants in other parts of the continent are also capable of using this method to lower their body temperature and thus overcome the heat of the environment. Surely many of us, while suffering from the high temperatures of summer, would also wish we had a pharyngeal pouch to spray ourselves with water just like elephants do.
Text and photos: Julio de Castro, veterinarian and Doctor in Parasitology. He has worked for FAO for 25 years and now lives in Zimbabwe. His observations on hippos contributed to the publication of the cited scientific article, of which he is a co-author. Write about her experiences in Africa on the blog A Bushsnob in wild Africa
