Flipper? Is that you?

May 31, 2008 2:52 PM

The aquatic ancestry of elephantsScientists believe they have discovered why elephants have trunks - they used them as underwater snorkels. New research suggests that the animals evolved from mammals like the sea cow.

Elephants swimming in the Indian ocean. A baby elephant swimming with tourists. Rajan, the retired logging elephant is featured in Scott Bloom's book, Elephant! You can swim with Rajan at Havelock resort.

posted by The Light Fantastic (27 comments total)

Ashes & Snow -- swimming elephant [previously - 1, 2].
posted by ericb at 2:59 PM on May 31, 2008

Ah, memories of the (in)famous Elephant threads.
posted by ericb at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2008

Save Rajan!
posted by (bb|[^b]{2}) at 3:33 PM on May 31, 2008

Sometimes I think I hear them out there at the beach at night. Just waiting, watching, preparing for the moment when they're ordered to attack.
posted by stavrogin at 4:11 PM on May 31, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This, this is why I love science.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:18 PM on May 31, 2008

Oh no! Is that website up to date? Is Rajan still in danger? I found April 2008 photos of him swimming with tourists, but they didn't come with commentary.
posted by bettafish at 4:26 PM on May 31, 2008

Ontogeny recapitulates philogeny!

and of course, the philosophical corrollary:

Ontology recapitulates philology!
posted by stargell at 4:37 PM on May 31, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I don't buy it at all. Sea cows are most probably related to elephants but they got the ancestry reversed. Trunks serve just as much as a purpose on land (grabbing food, etc) as they would in water (to breathe). Why would these superior aquatic "sea cows" with their trunks leave the water and let the inferior trunkless sea cows keep it?

The problem with trunks is that they don't leave fossils. I predict that one day we'll find a fossil though of a dinosaur with a trunk and have to rethink all those supposedly trunkless semi-aquatic long-necked large dinosaurs eating leaves off of trees while they stand in the middle of a lake. If you look at a skeleton of an elephant you'd have no idea it had a trunk, I bet the same is true for this guy.
posted by pwb503 at 4:54 PM on May 31, 2008

If you look at a skeleton of an elephant you'd have no idea it had a trunk

Uh, I'm no bonesologist, but I think that that big huge bone completely blocking the front of its mouth might at least be some teeny tinesy kind of clue.
posted by Flunkie at 5:05 PM on May 31, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This will be disproved within a few years.
posted by Burhanistan at 5:14 PM on May 31, 2008

re: "no idea it had a trunk"

musculature and tendon do leave their marks upon bone. People who study know.
posted by eustatic at 5:15 PM on May 31, 2008

exactly what will be disproved?

That elephant fetuses have trunks? I doubt it.

the connection to sea cows? there may be other lines of evidence you'll want to consider, although these are not described in the article.
posted by eustatic at 5:20 PM on May 31, 2008

I predict that one day we'll find a fossil though of a dinosaur with a trunk and have to rethink all those supposedly trunkless semi-aquatic long-necked large dinosaurs eating leaves off of trees while they stand in the middle of a lake.

That's been suggested, because of the placement of the nares on the top of the skull.

(It's not believed anymore that sauropods were semi-aquatic, btw. At least last I heard.)
posted by brundlefly at 5:39 PM on May 31, 2008

The pressure difference between water and surface makes it very laborious to expand the lungs. Even just 2 or 3 feet underwater breathing through a snorkel is extremely difficult (and not because there is so much air in the snorkel). Presumably if the trunk was used for this purpose elephants would also have very strong lungs or some other adaptation that could be checked for.
posted by stbalbach at 5:55 PM on May 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Why would it be extremely difficult to breath through a snorkel only three feet underwater, but still be fairly easy to breath through a regulator 30 feet underwater?
posted by oddman at 6:26 PM on May 31, 2008

That elephant skull freaks me right out.
posted by TheJoven at 6:32 PM on May 31, 2008

oddman writes "Why would it be extremely difficult to breath through a snorkel only three feet underwater, but still be fairly easy to breath through a regulator 30 feet underwater?"

I'm guessing the regulator can deliver the gas at pressure high enough to compensate for the depth.
posted by mullingitover at 6:32 PM on May 31, 2008

Why would it be extremely difficult to breath through a snorkel only three feet underwater, but still be fairly easy to breath through a regulator 30 feet underwater?

You'd need big, huge, powerful lungs. Elephantine lungs, even.
posted by rokusan at 7:11 PM on May 31, 2008

And besides, they still do use their trunks as snorkels.
posted by Flunkie at 7:15 PM on May 31, 2008

This will be disproved within a few years.

I agree. By Kirk Cameron.
posted by dobbs at 8:01 PM on May 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I remember reading a long time ago that elephant skulls were the source of cyclops lore, that the trunk hole was thought to be an eye socket.
posted by Brainy at 8:21 PM on May 31, 2008

Brainy: I remember reading a long time ago that elephant skulls were the source of cyclops lore, that the trunk hole was thought to be an eye socket.

Oh man. I read that too, growing up, but had completely forgotten it until this very moment. I'm pretty sure it was in a Zoobook about elephants. Regaining this memory has made me bizarrely happy. Thanks, Brainy.
posted by PhatLobley at 8:48 PM on May 31, 2008

Hey, now I remember that Zoobook as well! Thanks, PhatLobley.
posted by bettafish at 8:53 PM on May 31, 2008

I loved the picture in the elephant Zoobook of all the different elephants through the ages.

I loved those things!
posted by winna at 9:16 PM on May 31, 2008

Unexplained sightings of the Loch Ness monster could have been elephants enjoying a swim, a scientist has said.
posted by Sailormom at 9:22 PM on May 31, 2008

New research suggests that the animals evolved from mammals like the sea cow

Your new research was published in 1999. Wikipedia doesn't disagree, mind, but the ink has definitely dried on that story.
posted by mumkin at 11:36 PM on May 31, 2008

Currently, there is a TV commercial that depicts a surreal underwater circus. I am always struck by how delicately graceful the swimming elephant seems.

If mammals could evolve from land to sea, why is it improbable that some went the other way?
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:44 AM on June 1, 2008