Macrovibrissae and microvibrissae inversion and lateralization in elephants

Elephants are known for strongly lateralized trunk behaviors, but the mechanisms driving elephant lateralization are poorly understood. Here, we investigate features of elephant mouth organization that presumably promote lateralization. We find the lower jaw of elephants is of narrow width, but is rostrally strongly elongated even beyond the jaw bone. Elephant lip vibrissae become progressively longer rostrally. Thus, elephants have two lateral dense, short microvibrissae arrays and central, less dense long macrovibrissae. This is an inversion of the ancestral mammalian facial vibrissae pattern, where central, dense short microvibrissae are flanked by two lateral macrovibrissae arrays. Elephant microvibrissae have smaller follicles than macrovibrissae. Similar to trunk-tip vibrissae, elephant lip microvibrissae show laterally asymmetric abrasion. Observations on Asian zoo elephants indicate lateralized abrasion results from lateralized feeding. It appears that the ancestral mammalian mouth (upper and lower lips, incisors, frontal microvibrissae) is shaped by oral food apprehension. The elephant mouth organization radically changed, however, because trunk-mediated feeding replaced oral apprehension. Such elephant mouth changes include the upper lip–nose fusion to the trunk, the super-flexible elongated lower jaw, the loss of incisors, and lateral rather than frontal microvibrissae. Elephants’ specialization for lateral food insertion is reflected by the reduction in the centering effects of oral food apprehension and lip vibrissae patterns.