In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Elephant’s Child,” the crocodile that pulls the elephant’s nose lives in the Limpopo River.
The curious young elephant travels to the Limpopo after asking questions about what the crocodile eats. At the riverbank, the crocodile seizes his nose and stretches it into the trunk elephants have today. The story is a playful fictional explanation, not a scientific account of elephant anatomy.
Kipling places the river in a memorable phrase describing it as the “great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River.” The tale was published in Just So Stories, a collection first issued in book form in 1902. A common mix-up is associating the episode with The Jungle Book itself; “The Elephant’s Child” belongs to a separate Kipling collection.