Researchers have provided new insights into how ancestral elephants developed their dextrous trunks.

The study, published Nov. 27 as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, combines multiple analyses to reconstruct feeding behaviors in the extinct longirostrine elephantiforms—elephant-like mammals characterized by elongated lower jaws and tusks.

The editors describe the work as fundamental to our understanding of how the elongated lower jaw and long trunks evolved in these animals during the Miocene epoch, around 11–20 million years ago. It provides compelling evidence for the diversity of these structures in longirostrine gomphotheres, and their likely evolutionary responses to global climatic changes.