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The Impact of Motor Task Conditions on Goal-Directed Arm Reaching Kinematics and Trunk Compensation in Chronic Stroke Survivors
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Elephant trunks form joints to squeeze together small objects.

Jianing Wu1, Yichao Zhao1, Yunshu Zhang1

  • 1School of Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
|October 26, 2018
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

African elephants use a unique trunk technique to efficiently gather food. By forming a joint and compressing food piles, they solidify loose particles into a manageable lump for faster eating.

Keywords:
elephant trunkforce regulationjoint

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Area of Science:

  • Biomechanics
  • Animal Behavior
  • Physics

Background:

  • Wild African elephants consume large quantities of food rapidly.
  • Elephants employ a strategy of sweeping food into piles before ingestion.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the biomechanical mechanism elephants use to pick up piles of food with their trunks.
  • To analyze the physics behind elephant trunk manipulation of granular food materials.

Main Methods:

  • Combined experimental measurements using force sensors and theoretical analysis.
  • Observation of trunk joint formation and pillar creation for food compression.
  • Application of Weibullian statistics to analyze particle solidification.

Main Results:

  • Elephants form trunk joints, creating pillars up to 11 cm tall to compress food.
  • Greater force is applied to smaller food pieces, solidifying them into a lump.
  • The self-weight of the trunk pillar contributes up to 28% of the applied force.

Conclusions:

  • Elephants modulate applied force on granular materials, exploiting their fluid-to-solid transition.
  • This trunk manipulation strategy enhances feeding efficiency.
  • Findings may inform the design of future robotic manipulators for object handling.