Elephant's trunk may be one of most sensitive body parts of any animal

Elephant trunks may be one of the most sensitive body parts in the animal kingdom. Michael Brecht at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin and his colleagues dissected the heads of three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and five African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana). All the animals had lived in zoos and died of natural causes or had been euthanised because of severe health problems. These dissections are rare because the procedure is difficult. "The head of an elephant with the trunk and everything is about 600 kilograms," Brecht says.