Functional anisotropy of the elephant trunk skin: A biological blueprint for grasping, protection, and tactile sensing
Matteo Lo Preti, Paule Dagenais, Behnam Kamare, Irene Bernardeschi, Simone Lantean, Michel Milinkovitch, Lucia Beccai · 2026
Read Functional anisotropy of the elephant trunk skin: A biological blueprint for grasping, protection, and tactile sensing by Matteo Lo Preti, Paule Dagenais, Behnam Kamare, Irene Bernardeschi, Simone Lantean, Michel Milinkovitch, Lucia Beccai (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13271745.txt.
Description
Matteo Lo Preti is lead author of a 2026 journal article on the skin of the Asian elephant's trunk. A trunk is a muscular organ that must be both tough armour and a delicate, sensitive gripper. How one skin serves both jobs was largely unknown. So the team combined shape analysis, mechanical testing, and computer models.
The top side of the trunk proved 3.14 times stiffer and much rougher than the underside, forming a protective shield, while the flexible underside suits conformal grasping. The underside carries unique finger-like structures under the surface that models predict amplify stress, sharpening touch without sacrificing durability. The authors offer this zoned design as a blueprint for robotic tactile skins.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Matteo Lo Preti, Paule Dagenais, Behnam Kamare, Irene Bernardeschi, Simone Lantean, Michel Milinkovitch, Lucia Beccai |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 27988 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |