An elephant's trunk can turn even a small water hole into a shower. After spraying itself with water, the trunk is then used to coat the body with dust or mud. Rubbing against rocks or trees completes the process. E lephants join chimpanzees, sea otters, and just a few other animals in an exclusive club of tool users. Just as people use backscratchers to reach parts of their backs where their hands can't reach, so will elephants scratch with sticks grasped in their trunks.
Elephants also use their tusks for digging.
They can smell distant water and fresh vegetation. Like dogs, elephants can probably distinguish individual elephants through smell. It was just several years ago that researchers learned about elephants and infrasound. You may know that bats emit sound at ultrasonic frequencies higher than humans can hear. Now that they know what to look for, researchers say they can actually see an elephant ' s forehead vibrating when calling.