<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<export-example>
  <doc>
    <id>9207</id>
    <completedYear/>
    <publishedYear>2023</publishedYear>
    <thesisYearAccepted/>
    <language>eng</language>
    <pageFirst>1</pageFirst>
    <pageLast>8</pageLast>
    <pageNumber/>
    <edition/>
    <issue/>
    <volume>33</volume>
    <type>article</type>
    <publisherName/>
    <publisherPlace/>
    <creatingCorporation/>
    <contributingCorporation/>
    <belongsToBibliography>0</belongsToBibliography>
    <completedDate>--</completedDate>
    <publishedDate>--</publishedDate>
    <thesisDateAccepted>--</thesisDateAccepted>
    <title language="eng">Dense Reconstruction of Elephant Trunk Musculature</title>
    <abstract language="eng">The elephant trunk operates as a muscular hydrostat and is actuated by the most complex musculature known in animals. Because the number of trunk muscles is unclear, we performed dense reconstructions of trunk muscle fascicles, elementary muscle units, from microCT scans of an Asian baby elephant trunk. Muscle architecture changes markedly across the trunk. Trunk tip and finger consist of about 8,000 extraordinarily filigree fascicles. The dexterous finger consists exclusively of microscopic radial fascicles pointing to a role of muscle miniaturization in elephant dexterity. Radial fascicles also predominate (at 82% volume) the remainder of the trunk tip and we wonder if radial muscle fascicles are of particular significance for fine motor control of the dexterous trunk tip. By volume, trunk-shaft muscles comprise one-third of the numerous, small radial muscle fascicles, two-thirds of the three subtypes of large longitudinal fascicles (dorsal longitudinals, ventral outer obliques, and ventral inner obliques), and a small fraction of transversal fascicles. Shaft musculature is laterally, but not radially, symmetric. A predominance of dorsal over ventral radial muscles and of ventral over dorsal longitudinal muscles may result in a larger ability of the shaft to extend dorsally than ventrally and to bend inward rather than outward. There are around 90,000 trunk muscle fascicles. While primate hand control is based on fine control of contraction by the convergence of many motor neurons on a small set of relatively large muscles, evolution of elephant grasping has led to thousands of microscopic fascicles, which probably outnumber facial motor neurons.</abstract>
    <parentTitle language="eng">Current Biology</parentTitle>
    <identifier type="doi">10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.007</identifier>
    <enrichment key="PeerReviewed">yes</enrichment>
    <enrichment key="AcceptedDate">2023-09-01</enrichment>
    <enrichment key="opus.source">publish</enrichment>
    <author>Luke L. Longren</author>
    <submitter>Daniel Baum</submitter>
    <author>Lennart Eigen</author>
    <author>Ani Shubitidze</author>
    <author>Oliver Lieschnegg</author>
    <author>Daniel Baum</author>
    <author>John A. Nyakatura</author>
    <author>Thomas Hildebrandt</author>
    <author>Michael Brecht</author>
    <collection role="persons" number="baum">Baum, Daniel</collection>
    <collection role="projects" number="no-project">no-project</collection>
    <collection role="institutes" number="VDcC">Visual and Data-centric Computing</collection>
  </doc>
  <doc>
    <id>10134</id>
    <completedYear/>
    <publishedYear>2025</publishedYear>
    <thesisYearAccepted/>
    <language>eng</language>
    <pageFirst/>
    <pageLast/>
    <pageNumber/>
    <edition/>
    <issue/>
    <volume>8</volume>
    <type>article</type>
    <publisherName/>
    <publisherPlace/>
    <creatingCorporation/>
    <contributingCorporation/>
    <belongsToBibliography>0</belongsToBibliography>
    <completedDate>2025-12-08</completedDate>
    <publishedDate>--</publishedDate>
    <thesisDateAccepted>--</thesisDateAccepted>
    <title language="eng">Elephant trunk tip musculature reflects species differences in grasping behavior</title>
    <abstract language="eng">Elephants use their trunks, muscular hydrostats, to perform a plethora of tasks. Trunk tip morphology as well as grasping behavior differ between elephant species. While African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) use their dorsal and ventral finger for pinching movements, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) prefer to wrap around objects with their one dorsal finger and ventral bulb trunk tip lip. Moreover, E. maximus can flip their ventral bulb backwards to clamp objects behind the trunk tip. Whether trunk tip musculature differs between elephant species and muscle architecture is reflected by preferred grasping behavior is, however, not clear. In this study, we performed dense muscle fascicle reconstruction of three L. africana and three E. maximus hemi-trunk tips using a combination of manual and automated segmentation of high-resolution microfocus tomography (microCT) scans. We distinguish three types of muscle fascicles: longitudinal (bending and shortening), radial (elongating) and transversal muscle fascicles (elongating). We found that trunk tips of L. africana consist to one third of longitudinal and two thirds radial/transversal muscle fascicles, likely aiding in their grasping behavior, while E. maximus trunk tips consist to two thirds of longitudinal and one third radial/transversal muscle fascicles, which is advantageous for their wrapping and backward clamping behavior.</abstract>
    <parentTitle language="eng">Communications Biology</parentTitle>
    <identifier type="doi">10.1038/s42003-025-08998-6</identifier>
    <enrichment key="PeerReviewed">yes</enrichment>
    <enrichment key="AcceptedDate">2025-10-03</enrichment>
    <author>Lennart Eigen</author>
    <submitter>Blaž Brence</submitter>
    <author>Pius Ladenburger</author>
    <author>Blaž Brence</author>
    <author>Ani Shubitidze</author>
    <author>Daniel Baum</author>
    <author>Thomas Hildebrandt</author>
    <author>Michael Brecht</author>
    <collection role="persons" number="baum">Baum, Daniel</collection>
    <collection role="projects" number="no-project">no-project</collection>
    <collection role="institutes" number="VDcC">Visual and Data-centric Computing</collection>
    <collection role="persons" number="brence">Brence, Blaž</collection>
  </doc>
</export-example>
