Here’s What the Whiskers on an Elephant’s Trunk Do

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HHave you ever wondered how an elephant could pick up something as delicate as a peanut with its massive, thick-skinned trunk? It’s a bit like trying to pick up a single rock with a snow shovel. However, elephants manage to “go from carrying logs to delicately grabbing a tortilla chip” with their trunks. For proof, watch these videos from a 2017 Science study that characterized the gripping forces of elephant trunk tips.

Now, a German team of brain scientists, roboticists and haptic intelligence researchers has built on their findings by researching the function of elephant whiskers. An article published last week in Science reports that the whiskers of Asian elephants (Elephus maximus) are highly suited to the task of tactile sensing. “They are geometrically and mechanically adapted to facilitate tactile perception by encoding the location of contact in the amplitude and frequency of the vibrotactile signal felt at the base of the whisker,” the study authors explained.

Unlike many mammals whose whiskers cluster around the cheeks or chin, elephant whiskers, numbering around 1,000, are distributed along the entire length of their trunk. By measuring the structure of trunk whiskers, from their shape to their rigidity, porosity and internal composition, researchers discovered their function.

Read more: “Elephants are totally scary cats around bees”

Some mammals, such as cats and rats, can move their whiskers using local muscles, but elephant trunk whiskers are fixed and cannot grow back if they fall off. However, like cat whiskers, elephant whiskers have a stiff base that transitions into soft, rubbery tips. The whiskers also change from porous roots to denser tip material. The researchers hypothesize that this configuration amplifies the transmission of mechanical vibrations from the tips of the whiskers to the sensory neurons located at their base.

Although the elephant’s whiskers cannot move independently, when they brush against objects, they amplify tactile signals, helping the elephant perceive its surroundings. Elephants’ eyesight is notoriously poor, so whiskers offer a form of physical intelligence by providing complex, real-time information about whatever the trunk encounters. According to the study, higher concentrations of whiskers, 19 to 32 per square inch, confer additional sensitivity to the tip of the trunk.

All of this is to say that whiskers literally expand the sensory capabilities of elephant trunks, giving them the ability to delicately pluck that peanut from the ground.

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Main image: Sanit Fuangnakhon / Shutterstock

• Devin Reese

  Published on February 16, 2026

  Devin Reese is the editor-in-chief of Natural history and a science writer based in Alexandria, Virginia.