Elephants Can Detect Distant Rain Using Their Feet

Among the many things that elephants never forget is one of their most vital survival skills: how to detect rain from as far away as 150 miles. Many of our favorite pachyderms live in arid, drought-heavy regions of the world, making water an especially precious resource. Luckily for African elephants, they’ve adapted to those conditions by being able to sense the low-frequency vibrations that indicate a far-off storm — with their feet. 

Specialized nerve endings known as Pacinian corpuscles in the fatty pads of their feet sense those vibrations, which then travel up their leg bones and directly to their inner ears. The elephants  can even determine the exact direction of an imminent storm by lifting one foot and pressing another deeper into the ground.

This discovery was made by an international team of scientists working in Namibia, who found that elephants “undergo these sudden migrations that previously have not been explained” and “change the places they go and the speeds they go rather quickly.” The reason they do so, according to Texas A&M professor Oliver Frauenfeld, is in search of water. Sensing a far-off storm days before it occurs, entire herds can alter course and make their way in the direction of where there will soon be rainfall.