African elephants walk on their tippy-toes

African elephant

African elephants may develop foot problems when they tiptoe across hard surfaces in captivity.

Harvey Barrison/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Elephants don’t wear high heels, but they certainly walk like they do.

Foot problems plague pachyderms in captivity. But it hasn’t been clear what about captivity drives these problems.

Olga Panagiotopoulou of the University of Queensland in Australia and colleagues tested walking in nearly wild elephants.