New research reveals that elephant trunk whiskers are unlike any other animal's, and could inspire a new generation of robots.

Unlike many mammals whose whiskers cluster around their cheeks or chins, elephants’ whiskers, totaling about 1,000, are distributed down the entire length of their trunks. By measuring the structure ...

An elephant can lift a log, swing sand onto its back, and still pick up a peanut without crushing it. That mix of strength and delicacy has always looked a little mysterious, especially because ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. FILE PHOTO: An Asian elephant dries off with some sand in his enclosure at the zoo in Karlsruhe July 7, 2011. REUTERS/Alex ...

That’s because the trunk is highly sensitive when it comes to sensing touch. Scientists have determined that the whiskers ...

Though it looks more like Dr. Octopus' mechanical tentacles from "Spiderman," a flexible, robotic arm recently developed by German automation company Festo was actually fashioned after an elephant's ...

The whiskers of elephants and domestic cats have stiff bases that transition to soft rubber-like tips, different from the stiff whiskers of rats ...

The elephant has a secret hiding right on its nose. Its famous trunk, full of muscle and devoid of bone, can move in a virtually infinite number of directions and is capable of performing an array of ...

In A Nutshell Elephant whiskers have “physical intelligence”: Three built-in gradients (geometry, porosity, and stiffness) ...

There’s a Sherlock Holmes tale in here somewhere: A clever observer could check wrinkles and whiskers on an elephant trunk to catch a left-trunker pachyderm perp masquerading as a righty, thanks to a ...