Elephant tusks are modified, well-developed and continuously growing teeth - incisors or fangs (depending on the animal's belonging to a particular species).
Elephant teeth
In the mouth of these land animals, in addition to protruding tusks, there are four more molars (two in the upper and lower jaws), consisting of many enamel flakes connected to each other and allowing elephants to grind food. The Asian elephant has band-shaped chewing teeth, while the African elephant has diamond-shaped teeth.
The change of molars occurs about six times during the entire life of an elephant, with new teeth growing behind the old ones.
As for the shape of the tusks, the Indian (Asian) elephant has thin tusks (females have no tusks at all). The tusks of the African elephant are thick and huge, and their length sometimes reaches two or more meters.
What else is the difference between an Indian elephant and an African one?
The tusks of the largest adult Indian elephant grow up to a maximum of one and a half meters in length and weigh 20 - 25 kg. The growth of this animal can reach 3 m, and weight - 5 tons.
Elephant tusk,grown in northern India, is thick and strongly curved, and the tusks of his relatives, who settled in southern Africa, are thin and sharp, and the further south the territory, the thinner and sharper these formations.
Indian elephants, unlike African elephants, live exclusively in the forest, and preference is given to the undergrowth of bamboo thickets.
African elephants live both in the forest and in the savannah, and are the largest terrestrial mammals, as evidenced by the entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
A typical African elephant weighs up to 5 tons, and a female elephant - more than 2, but less than 3 tons. The maximum length of an African elephant's tusk is 3 m.
The largest representative of this species of elephants was shot in 1974 in Angola. This male weighed over 12 tons.
Amazing details
Elephants do not feel panic at all when they meet a mouse - this is fiction. To blow off such a tiny animal, and with it the nearby stones and other heavy objects, it is enough for an elephant to exhale.
These giants are truly afraid of common honey bees. Hearing the buzz of an approaching swarm of bees, the elephants immediately take to their heels. But these animals can hardly be called cowardly creatures. They are very careful and smart. By the way, the elephant is included in the list of the most intelligent animals of the Earth.
Few people know that the elephant is the owner of exceptional hearing, as well as an excellent memory and sense of smell. The elephant is able to remember places that are significant for him, as well aspeople who treated him badly (or well). But the most amazing quality of an elephant is a good ear for music, which allows him to remember and subsequently recognize a melody of three notes. True, he likes low notes much more than high and sonorous ones.
Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, the elephant seems to have an idea of death. Elephants are able to identify the corpses (and even bones) of their fellow tribesmen. The researchers were amazed at how the indifference with which elephants treat the remains of other living creatures was replaced by a manifestation of care and sympathy towards the corpses of their relatives.
Seeing the skeleton of an elephant, these animals cannot pass by: they begin to tensely feel the remains with their trunk, paying special attention to the head of the deceased. Thoroughly probing the skull with their trunks, as if trying to identify an untimely departed friend, the elephants do not leave his lifeless body to be torn to pieces by carrion animals, but cover it with dry leaves.
When one of the members of the herd is mortally wounded, he althy elephants, as if seeing off a relative to a better world, are on duty near him and do not disperse until the very end…
Why does an elephant need tusks?
With the help of this “tool”, the elephant uproots trees and sometimes defends itself from enemies, the main of which is a man. An enraged elephant with tusks (photo below), the length of which is sometimes equal to its own height, poses a serious danger to both its fellows and humans, but elephant rabies is a rare phenomenon. Elephant tusks are more of a punishment from nature than a gift. The fate of African elephants is especially sad,whose tusks have always been highly valued.
With the advent of a white man with a gun to the "black" continent, Africa has ceased to be an "elephant's paradise". Ruthlessly exterminating good-natured giants for the sake of precious tusks, European poachers left their carcasses to be eaten by hyenas and vultures.
Where is the "elephant cemetery"?
Interesting fact: no one has ever found the tusks of dead African elephants. This circumstance formed the basis of numerous legends that the inventive local population does not get tired of composing. The most notorious smugglers were already ready to believe in the existence of mysterious elephant cemeteries … but then wildlife researchers got down to business.
According to information provided by naturalists of the 20th century, elephant tusks serve as a source of minerals for porcupines, which, with the advent of the rainy season, are completely deprived of the minerals contained in the soil.
The question of the disappearance of tusks has long remained open for the reason that porcupines are nocturnal animals.
Features of ivory
Elephant tusk has a soft, plastic texture with a small number of cracks, but due to the fact that transportation across state borders, as well as storage of ivory products, is prohibited, the purchase of this material is pointless.
Outside, elephant tusks are mostly smooth and light, but inside they resemble hollow cone-shaped pulps, with internal voids reaching almost tothe middle of the length of the tusks.
How to distinguish an elephant tusk from a fake from another material
Specialists working with antiques note that very often the role of elephant tusks is assigned to quite high-quality plastic or ceramic fakes, which look very similar to carved ivory. Some counterfeiters pass off synthetic materials filled with bone chips as elephant tusks, which are also difficult to distinguish from natural material.
For the manufacture of fakes, in most cases, casting and hand-painting methods are used. If you look at the work of counterfeiters with the naked eye, you can find seam lines and traces of sprues. But the main difference is the unnatural smoothness and lightness of non-natural products.
Another, cheaper bone is often given out for elephant tusks, but the reason is not always the high cost of natural material. It's just that often sellers, being, in fact, resellers, do not know what they are selling.
It is also not uncommon for items made from the tusk of an elephant to be handcrafted from the bones of their ancient ancestor, the mammoth. By the way, mammoth tusks are prohibited not only for transportation, but also for processing.
An interesting experiment was decided in March 2015 by the Thai authorities, legalizing the possession of ivory. The population was asked to register elephant and mammoth tusks illegally kept at home in order to turn from smugglers into law-abiding citizens.
As it turned out, ivory souvenirsare kept by almost all inhabitants of the country. Those of them who decided to register their treasures, as promised, the state released from liability for illegal possession of smuggled goods.
As it turned out, in many families, items made of ivory and mammoth bone played the role of relics and were kept for posterity. Now the owners of family values can be calm.
Thai citizens who do not respond to the call of the authorities will face a fine of $200,000 or 3 years in prison.
What is the difference between mammoth tusks and elephant tusks
Mammoth tusks have no voids. Having a continuous uniform texture, they delight the eye with a variety of colors (from pale cream to deep black) and pronounced chiaroscuro.
The cross section of mammoth tusks has a heterogeneous color, resembling an alternation of dark and light rings dotted with radial or circular cracks. The white color of the tusk and the tiny texture are characteristic signs of low-quality material.
The main sign, thanks to which it can be determined that the "elephant tusk" actually belonged to a mammoth, is a "mesh" pattern that opens when sawing crosswise. The mesh is formed by interweaving of thin ruts and nerve fibers.
