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An African elephant in Tanzania, with visible tusks. Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canine teeth, as with narwhals, chevrotains, musk deer, water deer, muntjac, pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses and walruses, or, in the case of elephants, elongated incisors.
The tusks weigh from 23 to 45 kg (51–99 lb) and can be from 1.5 to 2.4 m (5–8 ft) long. They are curved forward and continue to grow throughout the elephant's lifetime. [28] Molar of Loxodonta africana, showing lozenge/loxodont. The dental formula of elephants is 1.0.3.3 0.0.3.3 × 2 = 26. [25]
A hefty set of tusks is usually an advantage for elephants, allowing them to dig for water, strip bark for food and joust with other elephants. Now researchers have pinpointed how years of civil ...
The dominant, or "master" tusk, is typically more worn down, as it is shorter and blunter. For African elephants, tusks are present in both males and females and are around the same length in both sexes, reaching up to 300 cm (9 ft 10 in), [57] but those of males tend to be more massive. [58] In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks.
A larger tusk measuring 2.96 metres (9.7 ft) long and weighing 70 kilograms (150 lb) has been recorded, but this may belong to a forest-bush elephant hybrid. The average tusk size is uncertain due to measurements historically being lumped in with those of African bush elephants, but based on the sizes of the largest known tusks may be in the ...
Identifying close relatives indicates poachers are probably going back to the same elephant populations over and over again. The study analysed the DNA of more than 4,000 African elephant tusks ...
Nigeria on Tuesday destroyed 2.5 tonnes of seized elephant tusks valued at over 9.9 billion naira ($11.2 million) in a push to protect its dwindling elephant population from rampant wildlife ...
The lower tusks are generally smaller than the upper tusks, but could grow to large sizes in some species, like in Deinotherium (which lacks upper tusks), where they could grow over 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) long, the amebelodontid Konobelodon has lower tusks 1.61 metres (5.3 ft) long, with the longest lower tusks ever recorded being from the ...