TRUTH OR TAIL: An elephant's trunk has over 40,000 muscles| Cleveland Zoological Society

Elephant trunks are amazing body parts, but how complicated are they really? Is it possible they have tens of thousands of muscles in the trunk alone? Keep reading to find out more...

TRUTH!

In fact, an elephant's trunk has no bones or joints. Organs like these are called "muscular hydrostats" - like a human tongue or octopus tentacles, they consist of mainly muscle.

An elephant trunk has over 40,000 individual muscles, compare that to the human body with around 600!

The trunk is connected to the elephant’s head by a bony opening in its skull. A special proboscis nerve runs from the brain to the trunk that controls the trunks’ pinpoint movements. This amazing appendage helps elephants eat, drink, trumpet, smell, communicate with each other, and grab objects.

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