In Rudyard Kipling’s story “The Elephant’s Child,” what does the young elephant want to know?

In Rudyard Kipling’s story “The Elephant’s Child,” the young elephant wants to know what the crocodile eats.

The question begins the chain of events that gives the story its comic explanation for the elephant’s trunk. The inquisitive young elephant asks every animal he meets, but the other creatures respond by scolding or striking him rather than answering. Eventually, he visits the Limpopo River to ask the crocodile directly.

The crocodile seizes the elephant’s nose and pulls it outward. The elephant resists by bracing himself, and the struggle stretches his nose into a trunk. Kipling presents this as a humorous fictional origin story, not as a scientific account of elephant anatomy.

The tale is sometimes confused with the Mowgli stories because it appears in Just So Stories, another Kipling collection involving animals. “The Elephant’s Child” is not one of the stories in The Jungle Book. Its memorable opening question is specifically about the crocodile’s diet.