Diet secrets of 'the Royals'

Elephant tail hair isotopes show cattle out-munch pachyderms

		IMAGE: A female African elephant walks in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve. Note the hairs on her tail. Scientists from the University of Utah and Save the Elephants analyzed chemical isotopes in... Click here for more information.

SALT LAKE CITY, April 13, 2009 – Two weeks after the rains begin, an elephant family named "the Royals" usually switches to a grass diet to bulk up for pregnancy and birth. But when they wandered off their African reserve one rainy season, cattle grazed the grass so short that elephants couldn't eat it, according to a University of Utah study.