--- title: Elephants: the trunk and everything it does — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Elephants: the trunk and everything it does», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An elephant has one trunk, two ears, four legs, two eyes and one heart, but the trunk is the part that does almost everything: --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Elephants: the trunk and everything it… # Elephants: the trunk and everything it does Lesson 21 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/0/) — An elephant has one trunk, two ears, four legs, two eyes and one heart, but the trunk is the part that does almost everything: it is a nose, a hand, a hose, a snorkel and a trumpet all at once. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/1/) — The trunk is the elephant's nose and top lip grown long and joined together, with two nostrils running all the way down it and no bones at all, only tens of thousands of little muscle bundles. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/2/) — Picture the zoo: the elephant reaches down, pinches one peanut with the tip of its trunk, curls it up and pops it into its mouth, because a short neck and a huge head mean the mouth can't reach the ground. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/3/) — Then it sucks up about 8 litres of water, squirts it into its mouth like a hose, and afterwards throws dust over its back as sunscreen and bug spray. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/4/) — Cartoons show elephants drinking through the trunk like a straw and blowing water out like a fireman; the second part is right, but the water goes up the trunk, stops, and is blown into the mouth. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/5/) — The trunk is the elephant's nose and upper lip joined together and grown very long. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/7/) — An African elephant has two finger-like tips at the end of its trunk, and an Asian elephant has one, so it often curls its trunk round things to pick them up. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/8/) — An adult elephant can hold about 8 litres of water in its trunk and then blows it into its mouth; it does not drink through it like a straw, and it drinks well over 100 litres a day. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/9/) — Elephants throw dust and mud over their backs, which protects their sensitive skin from sunburn and biting insects, and the deep wrinkles of their skin hold water and mud that cool them. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/10/) — Elephants can swim and use the trunk as a snorkel, keeping only its tip above the water. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/11/) — Elephants have a superb sense of smell and more smell genes than dogs, and lift the trunk to catch scents on the wind. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/12/) — Elephants greet and comfort each other by touching faces and twisting their trunks together. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/13/) — An elephant eats around 150 kilograms of plants a day and spends up to 16 to 18 hours a day eating, because plants give little goodness in each mouthful. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/14/) — A newborn calf can't control its trunk yet; it practises for months, sometimes sucking it like a thumb, and until then it kneels to drink with its mouth. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/15/) — Elephants may jump at small sudden things, but the story that they are specially afraid of mice is a myth. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/16/) — Elephants sometimes use tools, such as a stick to scratch an itch or a leafy branch to swat flies. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/17/) — The trumpet call is air blasted out through the trunk; elephants also make deep rumbles other elephants feel through their feet. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/18/) — The tip of the trunk is as sensitive as our fingertips, so elephants tap and feel things to test them, such as whether ground is safe. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/19/) — The ancestors of elephants, around 55 million years ago, were pig-sized animals with no trunk. - ← previous: [Leopards, jaguars, cheetahs and the house cat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/20-leopards-jaguars-cheetahs-and-the-house-cat/) - next →: [Elephants: families, tusks, ears and memory](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/22-elephants-families-tusks-ears-memory/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)