The inhalation speed of an elephant trunk is 30 times that of a human sneeze

Elephants have long noses weighing more than 100 kilograms.
They use their noses to do various things: drink water, search for food in vegetation, and breathe when wading in deep water
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Strong suction can help elephants store water and food in their noses

In order to better understand the mechanism behind the elephant’s powerful nose, Andrew Schulz and his colleagues from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States photographed a 34-year-old female African elephant at the Atlanta Zoo to complete a series of tests.
They found that elephants inhale faster than humans.
The rate of sneezing is nearly 30 times faster
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Related research results were published in the "Interface Journal of the Royal Society"

The researchers filled a water tank with water, measured the time it took for the elephant to suck water from the tank with its trunk, and measured the amount of water remaining in the tank after the experiment
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Subsequently, the researchers calculated that the elephant can absorb water at a speed of 150 meters per second

"This is about 30 times the speed of human sneezing
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" Schulz said that when a human sneezes, the speed of exhaled air is 4.

The researchers also estimated the volume of the elephant’s trunk by measuring the internal volume of the trunk of a 38-year-old African elephant, which was euthanized due to medical problems
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Researchers found that the size and weight of this elephant's nose are about the same as those of the Atlanta Zoo

The researchers used ultrasound imaging technology to observe the inside of the elephant’s nose and found that when the elephant’s trunk was inhaled, the contractile muscles enlarged the nostrils by 30%, thereby increasing the volume of the nasal cavity by 64%
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"They use this mechanism to absorb water, and store the water in the nose, spray it on the body to cool down
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" Schulz said

According to John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College of the United Kingdom, apart from fish, few vertebrates do this
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He said that considering that elephants evolved from a very distant aquatic ancestor, they seem to have the aquatic abilities of their ancestors and use it to forage on land

Related paper information: https://doi.