The fingerlike extremity of the trunk is used to pick up small objects, such as peanuts. The limbs are long, massive, and columnar. The feet are short and broad, columnar in shape. The weight of the animal rests on a pad of elastic tissue. The skin of adult elephants is sparsely haired.
Males retain the testes permanently within the abdomen.
The grinding teeth are generally large and high-crowned, with a complex structure. Ridges do not show on an unworn tooth, since it is covered with cement. The grinding teeth increase in size and in number of ridges from front to back. These teeth do not succeed one another vertically in the usual mammalian pattern, but come in successively from behind, the series thus moving obliquely forward. When the foremost tooth is so worn down as to be of no further use, it is pushed out, mostly in pieces.