Hey hi look at this video of a baby elephant having a serious battle with its adorably small trunk.
Baby elephants don’t learn to control their trunks until they’re about a year old. pic.twitter.com/HVk5hcZuLP
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) December 20, 2021
Baby elephants don’t know how to control their trunks until they’re about a year old. Sure, they know how to walk within hours of birth and understand the movements of their pack, but the trunk – a whole other story.
It comes down to necessity. Within the first six months of an elephant’s life, all they need to consume is milk from their mother. That’s a simple movement without any need to really use the trunk (because keep in mind, elephants also consume food and water through their mouths, not exclusively their trunks).
Elephants use their long trunks for trumpeting, drinking, grabbing, breathing and, of course, smelling. Smelling and breathing aside, these things are not super important to a baby elephant, which is still just trying to get a grip on this whole new concept called “being an elephant”.
Because of this, their trunks are often left flailing around on the fronts of their face, without the necessity to learn how to use the muscles inside of them.
“How do baby elephants drink, then?” I hear you ask. Well… The answer is just as adorable as the above video.
Adorable. Incredible, amazing, you go buddy, you gulp down that water. Testing out their trunks in the water, baby elephants seem to get a pretty good idea of how to use their trunks later on.
I love seeing baby elephants do this helicopter routine – maybe the secret to elephant flight wasn’t the ears as Dumbo would suggest, but it’s actually the trunk used as a propeller (this claim is disputed).
https://twitter.com/ed1tvideobot_/status/1472967694202769410?s=20
Of course, the internet has taken this video in a whole other direction and run with it. “Took me like 14 years,” one Twitter user wrote in reply. “Poor guy. Now this is on the internet forever. So glad social media didn’t exist when I couldn’t control my trunk,” another wrote.
Big shoutout to all the baby elephants learning to use their trunks.