Taking more than a few leaves

If one has to eat up to 270 kg of grass, leaves, roots, fruits, flowers and stems a day, one has to keep busy, keep moving.

The trunk or proboscis allows for easy gathering of the selected material. The elephant’s trunk is a fusion of the nose and the upper lip that comes in handy when the front feet are on the ground, the mouth is up high on pillar legs and masses of diverse material has to be ingested regularly to keep the stomach full. And how else does one lift water if one is built like this and gets thirsty?

The upper incisor teeth, the tusks, are handy tools in the occasional brawl that may happen in the bush. With humanity’s interest in ivory, these tusks that looked so good on the big males of yesterday are increasingly becoming a liability.

Maybe evolve smaller ones? Or get them to stop growing, similar to the teeth of other species? Human commercial interests are forever increasing (Wikipedia).