idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Nachrichten, Termine, Experten

Grafik: idw-Logo
Grafik: idw-Logo

idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft

Science Video Project
idw-Abo

idw-News App:

AppStore

Google Play Store



Instance:
Share on: 
09/27/2023 16:15

Dexterous Elephants

Kathrin Anna Kirstein Kommunikation, Marketing und Veranstaltungsmanagement
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

    Giants with microscopic muscles – New findings reveal the structure of the dexterous elephant trunk.

    A recent study investigated the musculature of the elephant and found that their trunk is a complex mesh of interwoven muscle and has an immense number of parts. The study will be published on September 26, 2023 in Current Biology.

    With the most complex musculature known in animals, the trunk of the elephant moves elegantly without any bones. Instead, their trunk moves with muscles pushing against each other to provide rigidity and form joints. Even today, the number of muscles in the elephant trunk is unclear. To provide an answer, Longren, Eigen, Brecht from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Hildebrandt from the Leibniz-Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IWZ) investigated the muscles of the elephant trunk at a microscopic scale. Creating a 3D image of the trunk using a microCT scanner, the researchers traced the individual muscle parts, called fascicles, to reconstruct the thousands of microscopic muscles. In total, there are an estimated 90,000 muscle fascicles in the elephant trunk. Michael Brecht notes: ‘We knew elephant trunks have many muscles, but the microscopic size of trunk tip muscles was a big surprise.’ With so many tiny muscles, the elephant is able to perform the impressive, dexterous movement of its trunk.


    Contact for scientific information:

    Prof. Dr. Michael Brecht
    Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin

    Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
    Philippstr. 13, Haus 6
    10115 Berlin

    Phone: +49 (0) 30 2093 6770
    michael.brecht@bccn-berlin.de


    Original publication:

    Longren, L. L., Eigen, L., Shubitidze, A., Lieschnegg, O., Baum, D., Nyakatura, J. A., Hildebrandt, T., & Brecht, M. Dense Reconstruction of Elephant Trunk Musculature. Current Biology, in press (2023)


    Images

    Criteria of this press release:
    Journalists
    Biology, Medicine
    transregional, national
    Research results
    English


     

    Help

    Search / advanced search of the idw archives
    Combination of search terms

    You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.

    Brackets

    You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).

    Phrases

    Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.

    Selection criteria

    You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).

    If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).