Tuskless elephants may evolve new problems
The IndependentSign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Recommended Ivory poaching triggers evolution of tuskless elephants Normally, both male and female African elephants have tusks, which are really a pair of massive teeth. “We had an inkling that whatever genetic mutation took away these elephants’ tusks was also killing males,” says Shane Campbell-Staton, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University. Even if poaching stopped tomorrow, tusklessness would keep indirectly killing males They calculated that even before the war, nearly one in five females were tuskless. “We don’t know what the exact changes are causing this loss of tusks, in either one of those genes,” Campbell-Staton says.
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Elephants in Mozambique may never develop tusks due to civil war, constant poaching finds study
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