Data on anatomy and movements of elephant trunks

Anatomical data of Asian and African elephant trunks: 3D surface meshes (.stl files) for the external morphology (from CT scans) and for the internal morphology of muscle groups (from magnetic resonance imaging)

Kinematic data (from marker-based motion capture with two adult African elephants): video sequences and 3D positions of tracked markers placed on the trunks during prehension experiments

More details provided in associated publication:

‘Elephants evolved strategies reducing the biomechanical complexity of their trunk’
Paule Dagenais, Sean Hensman, Valérie Haechler and Michel C. Milinkovitch
Current Biology, Vol. 31, (August 2021)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.029

Project website: LANE | Proboscis

This work was supported by a Future and Emerging Technologies grant (FET-Open n.863212 – “PROBOSCIS,” https://www.proboscis.eu, coordinated by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Pisa, Italy, under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.