Bark snack

Do elephants usually eat logs when there are other things to eat, or is this just a weird elephant?

Posted June 20, 2016 2:21 PM

by NuriaM scientist, moderator

nope, this elephant is not weird; elephants do eat wood, even if there are other things to eat.

There are several reasons why they do it. One has to do with their dentition: their teeth erupt from the back to the front (horizontally). They have 6 sets of molars during their whole life (they undergo further dentition 6 times!!), and when one tooth breaks off, another one pushes forwards to replace it. Their teeth are made up of ridges (lamellae) and when these lamellas are old and worn down, they need to break to fall down, and here hard wood plays an essential role. By chewing hard branches and bark, a lamella breaks off and falls down or is swallowed until the whole tooth is replaced by the next molar coming from the back. . Once all their teeth break off, the elephant will die of starvation (or malnutrition).

this pic. is very illustrative: http://forensic.citesmike.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/jaw_diagram_02.png

Another reason is because they take profit of the nutrients in wood; they have specialized digestive systems that allow them use the wood nutrients.

But sometimes they don´t eat it, but use it as a tool instead. We already talked about it here: https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP000cgv8

I hope I could help a bit 😃

Posted June 21, 2016 4:37 PM

by MimiA scientist, moderator