How an Elephant Loses Its Tusks - Issue 41: Selection
▻http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/how-an-elephant-loses-its-tusks
It takes a moment to register what’s missing from the elephants of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique: Many of the females don’t have tusks. Usually, both male and female elephants sport two giant, ever-growing teeth that serve both as tools and weapons. But these tusks also make elephants attractive targets to poachers looking to cash in on the black-market demand for ivory. Ivory hunting was rampant in Gorongosa over the 15 years of Mozambique’s civil war, which ended in 1992. The war has reshaped Gorongosa’s elephant population in surprising ways, in what might be called an example of rapid natural (or unnatural) selection.While virtually no male elephants are tuskless (they need tusks to fight), about 2 percent of female elephants are naturally tuskless. Among female elephants in (...)