Baby elephants suck their trucks just like human babies suck their thumbs. And they do it for the same reason – comfort. Trunk sucking also helps young elephants master the use of their trunks for feeding.
Aside from the comfort it provides, trunk sucking helps an elephant calf learn how to use and control this lengthy appendage. With more than 50,000 individual muscles in the trunk, you can imagine how complicated it is to get it to do what you want it to do at any given time. Sucking on the trunk helps a young elephant learn how to control and manipulate the muscles in the trunk so that it can fine-tune its use.
Elephants also suck their trunks as a means of advanced “smelling.” They can taste the pheromones of other elephants by touching their trunks to urine or feces and then popping the trunk in their mouths to get a closer whiff.
While trunk sucking is primarily a mannerism found in young elephants, older elephants—even mature bulls—have been seen sucking their trunks when they are nervous or upset.
Credit : Tree Hugger
Picture Credit : Google
