CHAPTER XXIV 
ELEPHANTS 
Family Elephantidce 
The elephants are perhaps best characterized by their 
proboscis, or trunk, which in the true elephant has developed 
into a grasping or prehensile organ several feet in length 
and capable of as delicate manipulation as the hand of the 
higher apes. The great length of the proboscis in the 
typical elephants has given rise to the name Proboscides , by 
which the order is known. This group comprises the living 
elephants and all of the fossil elephant-like mammals, the 
most primitive of which were quite unlike modern elephants, 
being no larger than tapirs, with very short trunks and 
tusks. The great bodily bulk of the living members, how¬ 
ever, is quite characteristic of the family Elephantidce. 
Combined with the great bodily size we find an adaptive 
leg structure, the legs being straight and columnar so as to 
support the great body weight, a condition also common 
to some extinct groups of giant mammals and such colossal 
reptiles as the giant dinosaurs. The primitive or remote 
ancestral elephant-like mammals had bent or angulated 
limbs similar to those of the hoofed mammals. The knees 
are placed low, being well outside the body and very differ¬ 
ent from the position they occupy in the horse and other 
hoofed mammals. The feet are primitive in structure, being 
evenly five-toed, but are united at the base into a more or 
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