Elephants are the largest land mammals on Earth, and understanding them better could lead to some incredibly large breakthroughs in science. Researchers are doing a deep-dive study on elephant trunks, with the aim of improving the future of robotics.

Elephants’ trunks are both delicate and strong — they are capable of grasping a single leaf but can also carry nearly 600 pounds. And scientists argue that these multifunctional trunks — called proboscis are incredible inspiration for the next generation of bio-inspired (仿生) robots.

“Classical robots are extremely good for performing a specific task for which they’ve been designed. If you want that robot to do something a little different, it will fail,” said Michel Milinkovitch, a professor of the physics of biology at the University of Geneva.

In new research, scientists explained how elephants can move their trunks with almost unlimited degrees of freedom, combining about 20 basic movements to carry out more complicated movements. “Elephants have sort of a toolkit of simple movements, and they can combine these simple movements to complex trajectories (轨迹),’’ Milinkovitch said. “They can adapt to the object you give them.” The study also found that elephants can form “pseudo-joints” with their trunks, similar to the structure of a human elbow (肘) and wrist.

“It’s also a feeling of wonder just looking at these amazing creatures,’’ Milinkovitch said, noting that African forest elephants and African savanna elephants are endangered species, “We also hope to increase awareness of the conservation of this very unique animal,” he said. “There are a lot of principles that we can learn from nature; it’s not just there for our happy life— it is really an incredible source of engineering principles.”

The Battista family of New York City was on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland when their 2-year-old Fisher went lost on July 4, 2020.

The Battistas immediately blanketed the area with missing posters, barraged (炮击) social media, and even got Fisher face-time on a local floating billboard (广告牌).

With no leads, the family decided to remain in the area for an extended stay. They hired a tracker and even consulted with an “animal communicator” in hopes of tapping into Fisher’s whereabouts (行踪) — all to no avail.

The family also set up a find-fisher Facebook page, which quickly gathered 8,000 followers, and launched an online fundraiser to raise awareness and help them in their efforts to bring their beloved fur baby home.

“Signs have been posted, and we’ve extended our stay in Ocean City and arranged to bring in a professional dog tracker, in addition to making continuous searching trips in a car, on foot, and on a bike,” Matthew Battista wrote.

On April 20, 2021, 290 days after Fisher made his unauthorized Independence Day exit, Baltimore City resident Wayne Horn was repairing his motorcycle when he noticed a stray (走失的) dog in the road. When a friend of Horn’s posted picture of the found dog to Facebook, the responses of “That’s Fisher!” came back faster than a boomerang (回旋镖).

Informed of the news, Elissa Battista recognized Fisher immediately. “From the moment I saw the photos I knew it was him from the markings and his little tongue sticking out,” she posted to Facebook.

The reunion was quickly arranged. The Battistas had some local friends pick him up from the Horns, and then Elissa made the five-hour trip to retrieve Fisher and bring him home. Apart from minor signs of possible frostbite (冻伤), Fisher was in excellent shape.

The giant panda’s special black-and-white fur makes it one of the most recognizable animals on the planet. But why does it have this unique coloring? To hide from natural enemies, both in the snow and in the shadows, study lead author Tim Caro, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology at the University of California, Davis, said in a new statement. Moreover, the large black circles around a panda’s eyes may help other pandas recognize it, the researchers said.

Understanding why the giant panda has such noticeable color has been a long-term problem to solve. To find out the answer, Caro and his colleagues looked at photos of pandas and 195 other carnivore(食肉动物) species, including 39 subspecies of bear. Then, they recorded the coloring on each area of those animals’ bodies, and compared them with areas of the panda’s body. “Compared with the previous studies, the breakthrough in this study was treating each part of the body as an independent area,” Caro said.

The research team tried to figure out the purpose of the dark-colored furry areas. After going through many comparisons, the researchers determined that the white parts of the giant panda help it hide in the snow. In contrast, its black arms and legs help it hide in the shadows, they said. The panda’s white-and-black coloring didn’t appear to be related to temperature regulation. Nor did they find evidence that the dark circles around a panda’s eyes helped to make them look cuter.

“This really was a great effort by our team, finding and scoring thousands of images and scoring more than 10 areas per picture from over 20 possible colors,” study co-author Ted Stankowich, an assistant professor of biology at California State University, Long Beach, said in the statement. “Sometimes it takes hundreds of hours of hard work to answer the simplest question: Why is the panda black and white?”