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How did the Elephant get its Trunk?
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoThe title do not accurately reflect the true content of the article..
- gumby 6y agoKipling's story was part of his "Just So" stories: a collection of amusing kids' stories that also have a jokey undertone that makes you think of the epistemology of natural sciences. Which is really the topic of the article. If you don't get the reference then indeed, the title is obscure. But it's a very well known reference; "how the elephant got its trunk" is the most well known of the stories.
- dclowd9901 6y agoThis article reminds me of recipes I find online: lots of fluff without actually getting to the meat of the content.
- badsectoracula 6y agoIt is a trace of how people saw elephants and their trunks throughout history, this isn't fluff: that is the 'meat' of the article. After all the magazine is about history.
- lqet 6y agoTLDR: > According to a study published in 2015, the length of the elephant’s trunk is proportional to the amount of food it can cram in its mouth, and most likely evolved in response to the declining nutritional content of the leaves on which it feeds. So St Ambrose was right: > ‘Since it is taller than every other animal’, he explained in the Hexameron, ‘it cannot bend down to feed. Therefore, it makes use of its trunk both to gather its food and to pour copious draughts of water down its throat.’
- eecks 6y agoVery interesting. Thanks for posting. Does anyone subscribe to print copies of history today? I am tempted to sign up.