Wildlife: why does an elephant need a trunk? Why does an elephant have a long nose? Why does an elephant have a long nose

One day my daughter and I were walking around the zoo. When we approached the enclosure, my daughter asked me a question that seemed simple at first glance: "Mom, why does an elephant need a trunk?" I hastened to explain to her that these were his "hands". My daughter was quite satisfied with my explanation, but I myself was not. I wondered what the full functionality of this simple organ, which belongs to the largest land animal in the world, in other words, why does an elephant need a trunk? Let's figure this out together!

Why does an elephant need a trunk?

I myself thought that this was a semblance of a hand, nose and lips at the same time. After reading all sorts of literature, I realized that I was close to the truth. Comrades, it turns out that the trunk of an elephant is quite multifunctional! Some of its purposes you don't even know about!

Sense of smell and lips

First of all, it is, of course, the sense of smell! The trunk is the nose of an elephant. By turning it in different directions, the animal easily recognizes various smells, another animal, person or danger. In addition to smelling, the trunk is also used by the elephant as a lip. With it, the animal easily takes out and puts food in its mouth.

"Hands" and "breadwinner"

Perhaps the most important explanation for why an elephant needs a trunk is, of course, its second "hands"! Since this is such a "hand" that allows a mammal to easily pick leaves or entire branches from the upper tiers of trees, as well as draw water from rivers and lakes. By the way, the latter is a rather interesting moment in the life of elephants. Many people are not so much interested in why an elephant needs a trunk, but why does he water himself from it? Friends, well, it's simple - this is the most common cooling shower, necessary measure on rather hot days, and as you know, in the places where elephants live - India and Africa - summer continues all year round... But let's get back to our "rams". The trunk helps not only to pluck the leaves, but also to drive away various insects that bite the ground giant. In addition, with the help of the trunk, the elephant itches. By the way, all this explains why the elephant long trunk. Evolution does not sleep! A short proboscis would hardly cope with the above tasks.

self defense

One of important functions trunk in the life of this animal is the ability to defend itself from enemies. A multifunctional organ is an enviable "weapon" against various enemies. I was interested to know that the blow with the elephant trunk is so powerful that sometimes it leads to the instant death of its offender! But in most cases, it is, of course, just injury.

Means of communication

With the help of the trunk, elephants make various sounds that help these animals communicate with each other. In addition, no one passes without it mating games. It is with this organ that the elephant wins the favor of the female ...

My trunk is my enemy!

When a person understands what great functionality hidden in a single elephant organ, then, without hesitation for a long time, he began to subordinate the animal to his will. For example, the English colonialists used the elephant and its trunk for a very long time as labor force. Few of them were blacks! The fact is that with the help of a trunk, an elephant easily swings trees, carries heavy objects (for example, logs), paving the way where there is complete impassability.

Here we figured it out!

So, dear friends, the trunk is a universal and vital organ of any elephant - both Indian and African! Now that I have a complete information picture, I can easily answer my daughter's question!

Olga Korovina
Project "Where does the elephant's trunk come from"

« Where does the elephant's trunk come from»

Ivanov Yaroslav

MBDOUd/s#12 "Our happiness"

Application.

According to the text of the abstract - presentation « Where does the elephant's trunk come from» (28 illustrations on sheets, 1 copy).

Competition research preschool projects

Where does the elephant's trunk come from?

Section: “My first teaching and research project»

(natural science direction)

Ivanov Yaroslav,

MBDOU d / s No. 12 "Our happiness"

Tbilisi region,

stanitsa Tbilisskaya

Scientific leaders:

« Where does the elephant's trunk come from»

Ivanov Yaroslav

MBDOU d / s No. 12 "Our happiness"

Annotation.

I love learning new and interesting things about the world around us. Most of all I enjoy listening to my mother reading, studying and looking at illustrations, watching TV shows and movies about animals. My favorite animal - elephant.

I recently visited the Darwin Museum, where I saw the fossil baby mammoth Lyuba and other exhibits elephants and mammoths.

I asked my parents:

From where elephants appeared trunk, because animals descended from dinosaurs and them with trunk was not?

Hypothesis: elephant's trunk appeared in the process of evolution.

Target: explore life elephants and trunk functions. Consider evolutionary development elephants.

Object of study: elephants.

Tasks:

Explore life elephants.

Reveal functional tasks elephant trunk.

Find the answer to your question « Where does the elephant's trunk come from?»

Life elephants.

Elephant- the largest and most powerful animal on earth. Only whales surpass them in size.

live elephants 70-80 years old eat plant foods. Elephant feeds on grass and tree leaves.

They sleep little - half as much as a person. This gives them the opportunity to spend more time looking for food. They move freely through swamps and thickets, easily climb large mountain slopes, and swim well. The body is dressed in skin that no thorns and thorns can hurt.

There are two kinds in the world elephants, each with one type.

African - lives in the forest areas of tropical Africa.

Indian - lives in Sri Lanka and the Indian Peninsula, in the countries of Indochina, South China and on the large islands of Indonesia.

Elephants live in herds(family groups). In a herd from 10 to 35 elephant with baby elephants and one old elephant. At elephants mostly one cub is born. Elephant very cute and cute babies who travel by grabbing proboscis for mother's tail.

Favorite activity for elephants are food. Every day he eats up to 250 kilograms of food and drinks up to 200 liters of water.

elephants they adore water and do not miss the opportunity to swim and splash in the reservoirs. They are excellent swimmers, surprisingly leaving only the very tip above the water. trunk and forehead.

Roar elephant is a piercing and screeching sound that resembles both the squeal of car brakes and the hoarse huge bugle.

elephants- Animals are very friendly. When they see each other, they, like people, always say hello, they just do it in their own way. special ritual, which is intertwined trunks with each other while trumpeting loudly.

As little children hold their mother's hand with their hand, so baby elephants in the first years of life go for elephant - mother holding her tail with her proboscis.

In addition to the huge size, elephant, strikes and surprises him trunk

Functional tasks trunk.

What is this organ? What is it for elephant? How was it formed? And generally speaking trunk Is it a changed upper lip, nose or hand? How to answer all these questions?

trunk elephants perform many actions. They are recruiting in trunk water water themselves and each other with this water; take trunk food; pluck leaves and branches; trumpet; clap and stroke each other and even know how to draw with them.

But how could it appear elephant such an amazing organ?

And it was all like that.

And everything was like that: a long time ago, millions of years ago, distant ancestors roamed the earth elephants. Instead of trunk they had a slightly elongated fused nose and upper lip. With such a nose - lip elephants snatched tidbits from the trees. Some of the animals had a nose-lip that was at least a little longer, that got more food. These animals grew strong and hardy. But in nature, the fittest survive. That's how they survived elephantine, whose nose-lip was at least a little longer than the rest. To cubs born into the world with more long nose-lips than their counterparts, life was easier. And the cubs of their cubs also had an easier life. So from generation to generation animals appeared, at least not by much, but with longer and longer noses - lips.

Centuries passed. And nature sifted out, selected from all animals the most enduring, most adapted to the difficulties of life, including elephants with long noses. Thanks to such natural selection, the nose-lip turned first into a short nose, and then into a real one. trunk. at the tip trunk at first it turned out something like a finger, which elephant can pick up even a blade of grass from the ground. Once - and elephant he plucked a bunch of grass for them, two - a green twig, a delicious fruit, three - doused himself on a hot day with water, like from a hose, four - sprinkled sand on his sides. The elephant even learned to blow his trunk.

Conclusion.

In the evolution of the detachment proboscis a definite trend can be observed. From the Eocene meriterium (1) through the Oligocene fayum (2, Miocene homotherium (3) and tetralophodon (4) to the Pliocene Stegodon (5) and modern elephant(6) there is an increase in size, complication of teeth, the transformation of incisors into tusks and the development trunk from the fused nose and upper lip.

Series of evolution proboscis, shown in the figure, is collected from representatives of different evolutionary lines and has only comparative anatomical significance.

I hugged the globe - the globe of the earth.

Alone over land and water

In the hands of my continents

They whisper softly to me "take care"

After all, animals, birds, ants

We are all children of the same green!

Related publications:

Sensory development serves as the basis for understanding the world. It is aimed at developing in children a full perception of the surrounding reality.

Abstract of an open lesson on applications in the second junior group "Vitamins for an Elephant" Plan - abstract open class on artistic and aesthetic development (applications) in the second junior group Topic of the lesson: “Vitamins.

Summary of the lesson on the formation of elementary mathematical representations "Elephant's Birthday" in the preparatory group Abstract of the lesson on the formation of elementary mathematical representations with the help of non-traditional methods of activity on the topic “Day.

Short-term project "Where did the bread come from" Project “Where did the bread come from” Project author Sheerman T. B. 2016 Type of project: information and research. duration.

So you call the fairy tale of the English writer Kipling. It tells about a curious baby elephant who pestered his relatives with the most unexpected questions. In those days, according to the fairy tale, elephants did not have a trunk, but had a short nose. The curious baby elephant decided to find out what the crocodile had for breakfast, and went to ask him about it. The crocodile wanted to eat the baby elephant and grabbed him by the nose, and since the baby elephant rested his feet on the shore and turned out to be stronger than the crocodile, he only stretched the baby elephant's small nose into a long trunk.

This, of course, is a fairy tale, and although the signs acquired by animals during life are transmitted to offspring, it took many millions of years for the elephant to form such a trunk as it has become now.

By studying the skulls of modern and long-extinct elephants, as well as species related to elephants, scientists have been able to establish the origin of the trunk.

According to the excavations, North Africa about 40 million years ago there lived an animal that has now received scientific name meriterium. It looked more like a pig than an elephant. He had a long muzzle, jaws stretched forward with large quantity teeth, from which the two upper incisors protruded outwards. And the movable tip of his nose, fused with upper lip hung down. The growth of Meriterium did not exceed a large donkey. The movable proboscis on its snout was a very handy organ. They could pick and put plants in their mouths.

We see a more developed trunk already in various kinds mastodons - the direct ancestors of the elephant. They still have a long snout and many teeth, but the upper jaw is already greatly shortened, and its fleshy lip has turned into a trunk. The incisors of mastodons disappeared, except for the top two, which turned into tusks. The last mastodons were already contemporaries of the first people.

We see an even greater development of the trunk in the fossil mammoth. The trunk became a powerful organ and reached such a length that the mammoths, without bending down, plucked grass for them. Accordingly, the jaws were greatly shortened, and the tusks became huge and did not fit in the oral cavity.

At modern elephants the trunk is very flexible and mobile. Its development led to a further decrease in the length of the head and the number of teeth. The elephant, except for the tusks, has no incisors, the fangs have disappeared, and the molars have only one on the right and left on each jaw. The surface of these teeth is ribbed, adapted for grinding hard vegetation.

Interestingly, elephants change their permanent molars three times during their life: the old ones are replaced by new ones growing from the back of the jaw. Due to the length and mobility of the trunk, mammoths and elephants became massive and clumsy.

All the "work" of delivering food to the mouth fell on the trunk. Elephants have lost the ability to run fast. Yes, they do not need to flee from predators. Having such dimensions, trunk, tusks, they will easily defeat any enemy.

• Why does an elephant have a long nose? I think everyone has asked this question.
• Here is how children answer this question: The paws of an elephant are thick and clumsy. Will they be able to pick a delicious banana from a palm tree or brush off annoying insects? Here is the wise nature and gave the elephant a trunk, which serves him not only as a nose, but also as a “hand”. An elephant draws water with its trunk and pours it into its mouth. He also sends food to his mouth. If you want to take a shower, again you can’t do without a trunk. The elephant's trunk is strong and flexible and in case of danger can become a formidable weapon.
• There are many legends about this occasion.
• Once upon a time, there lived a Khan. He had the longest nose in the world.

Every time Khan had a baby, he went up to him, looked at his nose and, sighing sadly, said: "It's short again." All the inhabitants of the planet had a normal nose length, even the heirs of Khan. Khan was very upset about this. And then one day, an interesting thought came to his mind.

• He ordered to bring the largest inhabitant of the planet and stretch his nose. The servants searched for a long time and finally found ... It turned out to be an elephant. They pulled the elephant by the nose for so long that it became seven times longer than the nose of their master. When Khan saw this elephant, he couldn't help but be delighted.

Now I don't have one long nose! Ha ha ha!

• Contrary to the offspring of the Khan, the descendants of the elephant, since then, were born only with long noses.

An elephant's nose is called a trunk. The trunk is a long flexible process formed by the nose and upper lip fused together. At African elephant the trunk ends in 2 processes, dorsal and ventral. The usual length of the trunk is about 1.5 m, weight - 135 kg. Thanks to a complex system of muscles and tendons, the trunk has great mobility and strength. With its help, the elephant is able to both pick up a small object and lift a load weighing 250-275 kg. An elephant's trunk can hold 7.5 liters of water. But small elephants do not know how to use this “appendage” and even sometimes step on it. It takes a lot of time to learn how to master it. This lesson is taken over by the elephants, who teach the kids the skill for several months. Moreover, they do not leave their children for many years - such a strong motherly love!

• The trunk has many muscles - about 40,000. Therefore, this organ is very strong and flexible. So the elephant can use his trunk as a very effective weapon. The tip of the trunk, like the fingers, is so sensitive that it can feel a barely perceptible touch.
• species-specific anatomical feature respiratory system elephant is the presence of a trunk. This organ is used by animals for breathing, eating, water, communication, tactile sensations and much more. On the ground, elephants breathe through both their mouths and their trunks. Being in the water, in which they are often completely immersed, elephants breathe with their trunk, putting it out. An elephant performs 4-6 respiratory movements per minute. The trunk, as noted above, consists of 40,000 muscle fibers, due to which it is extremely mobile, can bend in all directions, lengthen, shorten in accordance with the requirements of the environment. With the help of a trunk, an elephant can lift very heavy objects and supply water to oral cavity while gaining immediately up to 17 liters! Then he puts the end of the trunk in his mouth and releases water into his throat. In addition, elephants, by inserting their trunk into their throats, can draw water from the stomach and then pour it on themselves or on their cubs to cool down.
• The trunk also serves elephants for communication, courtship and care of children, but can also become a formidable weapon in battle. An elephant that has lost its trunk is doomed to starvation. The only time an elephant doesn't need a trunk to eat is early childhood: baby elephant sucks mother's milk directly by mouth. The sense of smell of an elephant is very subtle, it can smell a person more than 1.5 km away. An elephant performs 4-6 respiratory movements per minute.
• There is such a fact about the appearance of a trunk in elephants: In 1993, due to the production of South Africa shooting elephants (this is a separate sad topic), 6 embryos aged from 58 to 166 days fell into the hands of scientists. In the course of their research, it turned out that the elephant is a former marine mammal (similar sea ​​cows), which returned to land again 30 million years ago. That he used his trunk originally as a breathing tube. Then it is clear what made the trunk lengthen over time. It is also clear why the elephant needed large ears-fins. Well, what about the size? Normal for a marine animal. Weight is no longer an issue when the water pushes out. By the way, Indian elephant and, now, he uses his trunk like that, swimming with a log across the river. He cannot breathe through his mouth because of his short neck.

How did you come to all this?

• Nephrostomes were found in all elephant embryos. As I understand it, these are some kind of renal canals that are found only in freshwater fish, frogs and egg-laying reptiles and mammals (echidna, platypus). Normal mammals do not have them.
• The trunk of the embryo, as it turned out, develops much earlier than one might think, which also fits into its marine origin.

Follow-up DNA comparisons of elephants biochemical analyzes and immune system With marine mammals, showed their amazing closeness to sea cows.

• How interesting and how bizarre the world is. Once upon a time, all living things lived in water. Then the living creatures began to crawl onto land. Mammals appeared. Some of them (whales, dolphins) returned to the seas and oceans. It would seem, where next? So no, there were repatriates who again returned to land. Carousel of evolution, and nothing more.

Baby elephant. Kipling's Fairy Tale for Children to read

In ancient times, my dears, the elephant did not have a trunk. He had only a blackish thick nose, the size of a boot, which swayed from side to side, and the elephant could not lift anything with it. But one elephant appeared in the world, a young elephant, a baby elephant, which was distinguished by restless curiosity and constantly asked some questions. He lived in Africa and conquered all of Africa with his curiosity. He asked his tall uncle the ostrich why he had feathers on his tail; the tall uncle ostrich beat him with his hard, hard paw for this. He asked his tall aunt giraffe why her skin was spotted; for this the giraffe's tall aunt beat him with her hard, hard hoof. And yet his curiosity did not subside!
He asked his fat hippo uncle why his eyes were red; for this, the fat uncle hippo beat him with his wide, very wide hoof. He asked his hairy baboon uncle why melons tasted this way and not another; for this, the hairy uncle baboon beat him with his shaggy, shaggy hand. And yet his curiosity did not subside! He asked questions about everything he saw, heard, tasted, smelled, felt, and all the uncles and aunts beat him for it. And yet his curiosity did not subside!
One fine morning before spring equinox the restless baby elephant asked a strange new question. He asked:
What does a crocodile have for lunch?
Everyone shouted "shh" loudly and began to beat him for a long time, non-stop.
When they finally left him alone, the baby elephant saw a bell bird sitting on a thorn bush and said:
- My father beat me, my mother beat me, my uncles and aunts beat me for "restless curiosity", but I still want to know what a crocodile has for dinner!
The bird kolo-kolo grimly croaked in response to him:
- Go to the shore of a large gray-green muddy river Limpopo, where the fever trees grow, and see for yourself!
The next morning, when the equinox had already ended, the restless baby elephant took one hundred pounds of bananas (small with red skin), one hundred pounds of sugar cane (long with dark bark) and seventeen melons (green, crispy) and declared to his dear relatives:
- Farewell! I go to the big grey-green muddy river Limpopo, where the fever trees grow, to find out what the crocodile has for lunch.
He left, a little flushed, but not at all surprised. On the way, he ate melons, and threw the peels, because he could not pick them up.
He walked and walked to the northeast and ate melons until he came to the bank of the big gray-green muddy river Limpopo, where the fever trees grow, as the bird kololo-kolo told him.
I must tell you, my dears, that until that very week, until that very day, until that very hour, until that very minute, the restless baby elephant had never seen a crocodile and did not even know what he looked like.
The first one that caught the baby elephant's eye was a two-color python ( huge snake), wrapped around a rocky block.
- Excuse me, - politely said the baby elephant, - have you seen a crocodile in these parts?
- Have I seen a crocodile? the python exclaimed angrily. - What's question?
“Excuse me,” the baby elephant repeated, “but can you tell me what a crocodile has for dinner?”
The two-colored python instantly turned around and began to beat the baby elephant with its heavy, heavy tail.
- Weird! - noticed the elephant. - My father and mother, my own uncle and my own aunt, not to mention the other uncle hippo and the third uncle baboon, all beat me for "restless curiosity." Probably, and now I get the same for it.
He politely said goodbye to the python, helped him again wrap himself around the rocky block and went on, a little excited, but not at all surprised. On the way, he ate melons, and threw the peels, because he could not pick them up. At the very bank of the big gray-green muddy river Limpopo, he stepped on something that seemed to him a log.
However, in reality it was a crocodile. Yes, my dears. And the crocodile winked his eye - like that.
- Excuse me, - politely said the baby elephant, - have you ever met a crocodile in these parts?
Then the crocodile screwed up its other eye and stuck its tail half out of the mud. The baby elephant politely backed away; he did not want to be beaten again.
“Come here, little one,” said the crocodile.
- Why are you asking about this?
“Forgive me,” the elephant answered politely, “but my father beat me, my mother beat me, not to mention uncle ostrich and aunt giraffe, who fights just as painfully as uncle hippos and uncle baboons. Even here on the shore a two-colored python beat me, and with its heavy, heavy tail it beats more painfully than all of them. If you don't care, then please don't hit me.
“Come here, little one,” repeated the monster. - I am a crocodile.
And as proof, he burst into crocodile tears.
The baby elephant even took his breath away with joy. He knelt down and said:
- You are the one I have been looking for for many days. Kindly tell me what do you have for lunch?
- Come here, little one, - answered the crocodile, - I'll tell you in your ear.
The baby elephant bent his head into the toothy, fetid mouth of the crocodile. And the crocodile grabbed him by the nose, which until that day and hour the baby elephant had was no more than a boot, although much more useful.
- It seems that today, - said the crocodile through his teeth, like this, - it seems that today I will have a baby elephant for dinner.
The baby elephant did not like this at all, my dears, and he said through his nose, like this:
- No need! Let me go!
Then the two-colored python hissed from his rocky block:
- My young friend, if you do not now begin to pull with all your might, then I can assure you that your acquaintance with a large leather bag (he meant a crocodile) will end badly for you.
The baby elephant sat on the shore and began to pull, pull, pull, and his nose kept stretching. The crocodile floundered in the water, whipping white foam with his tail, and he pulled, pulled, pulled.
The baby elephant's nose continued to stretch. The baby elephant braced himself with all four legs and pulled, pulled, pulled, and his nose continued to stretch. The crocodile raked the water with its tail like an oar, and the baby elephant pulled, pulled, pulled. Every minute his nose was stretched out - and how it hurt, oh-oh-oh!
The baby elephant felt that his legs were slipping, and he said through his nose, which now stretched out two arshins:
- You know, this is too much!
Then a two-color python came to the rescue. He wrapped himself in a double ring around the hind legs of the baby elephant and said:
- Reckless and reckless youth! We must now fit well, otherwise that warrior in armor (he meant the crocodile, my dears) will spoil your whole future.
He pulled, and the baby elephant pulled, and the crocodile pulled.
But the baby elephant and the bicolor python pulled harder. At last the crocodile released the baby elephant's nose with such a splash that was heard along the entire Limpopo River.
The elephant fell on its back. However, he did not forget to immediately thank the two-colored python, and then began to look after his poor protruding nose: Wrapped it in fresh banana leaves and plunged it into the big grey-green muddy river Limpopo.
- What are you doing? asked the bicolor python.
“Forgive me,” said the baby elephant, “but my nose has completely lost its shape, and I am waiting for it to shrink.
"Well, you'll have to wait a long time," said the two-colored python. - It's amazing how others do not understand their own good.
For three days the baby elephant sat and waited for his nose to shrink. And his nose was not shortened at all and even made his eyes slanted. You understand, my dears, that the crocodile pulled out a real trunk for him, such as elephants now have.
At the end of the third day, a fly bit the baby elephant on the shoulder. Without realizing it himself, he lifted his trunk and swat the fly to death.
- Advantage number one! - said the bicolor python. "You couldn't do that with a simple nose." Well, now eat some!
Without realizing it himself, the baby elephant stretched out its trunk, pulled out a huge bunch of grass, knocked it out on its front legs and put it into its mouth.
- The second advantage! - said the bicolor python. "You couldn't do that with a simple nose." Don't you find that the sun is very hot here?
- True, - the elephant answered.
Without realizing it himself, he collected mud from the big gray-green muddy river Limpopo and splashed it on his head. The result was a mud cap that spread behind the ears.
- The third advantage! - said the bicolor python. "You couldn't do that with a simple nose." Don't you want to be beaten?
“Forgive me,” answered the baby elephant, “I don’t want to at all.
- Well, don't you want to beat someone yourself? continued the two-colored python. “I really want to,” said the baby elephant.
- Good. You'll see how your new nose will come in handy for this, - explained the two-colored python.
“Thank you,” said the baby elephant. - I will follow your advice. Now I'll go to mine and try them on them.
In this picture you see a baby elephant plucking bananas from tall tree with her beautiful new long trunk. I know this picture is not very good, but I can't help it: it's too hard to draw bananas and elephants. The black stripe behind the baby elephant depicts a wild swampy area somewhere in the wilderness of Africa. The baby elephant made himself mud caps from the mud that he found there. I think it will be good if you paint a banana tree in green color, and the baby elephant - in red.
The baby elephant went home across Africa, twisting and turning his trunk. When he wanted to eat the fruits, he plucked them from the tree, and did not wait, as before, for them to fall on their own. When he wanted grass, he pulled it out with his trunk without bending down, and did not crawl on his knees, as before. When the flies bit him, he broke off a branch and fanned himself with it. And when the sun was hot, he made himself a new cool cap of mud. When he was bored walking, he hummed a song, and through his trunk it sounded louder than copper pipes. He deliberately turned off the road to find some fat hippo (not a relative) and give it a good beating. The baby elephant wanted to see if the two-colored python was right about his new trunk. All the time he was picking up the peels of melons, which he threw on the way to Limpopo: he was distinguished by neatness.
One dark evening he returned to his people and, holding his trunk in a ring, said:
- Hello!
He was very happy and answered:
- Come here, we will beat you for "restless curiosity."
- Ba! - said the elephant. You don't know how to hit at all. But look how I fight.
He turned his trunk and hit his two brothers so that they rolled somersaults.
- Oh oh oh! they exclaimed. - Where did you learn such things? .. Wait, what's on your nose?
- I got a new nose from a crocodile on the banks of the big gray-green muddy river Limpopo, - said the baby elephant. - I asked him what he had for lunch, and he gave me this.
- Ugly, - said the hairy uncle baboon.
- True, - answered the baby elephant, - but very convenient.
With these words, he grabbed his hairy uncle the baboon by the shaggy hand and thrust him into the hornets' nest.
Then the baby elephant began to beat other relatives. They were very excited and very surprised. The baby elephant pulled out the tail feathers of his tall ostrich uncle. Grabbing his tall aunt giraffe by the hind leg, he dragged her through the thorn bushes. The baby elephant yelled at his fat hippo uncle and blew bubbles in his ear when he slept in the water after dinner. But he did not allow anyone to offend the kolokolo bird.
Relations became so aggravated that all the relatives, one by one, hurried to the banks of the big gray-green muddy river Limpopo, where fever trees grow, in order to get new noses from the crocodile. When they returned, no one else fought. Since then, my dears, all the elephants that you will see, and even those that you will not see, have the same trunks as the restless baby elephant.