Evolution of Elephant Tusks
Claire Harris
Ferrum College
The Evolution of Elephant Tusks Elephants are being poached and which is creating a genetic disturbance when producing offspring. Mal elephants with tusks are no longer dominant. If elephants did not adapt to being produced without tusks, then their whole species could have gone extinct. Do the elephants stand a chance in their environment without tusks to defend and dig for themselves? This question is important to answer because elephants are use to having their tusks to defend themselves, show dominance, and finding their water supplies deep in the ground us their tusks to dig. Without their tusks they are forced to live a non-predatory life that will take adapting to. This problem in the elephant’s lives is interesting because their whole domain will be affected and the offspring will have to learn total new ways of life unlike the generation that came before them. Doing research on the topic will give us a better understanding of how the genetics passed onto the offspring will be done and how the elephants will have to live their life. Without tusks the elephants will have to handle many obstacles differently. A elephant with tusks use them for protection against predators like tigers or against
…show more content…
"Adaptations." Sea World Parks & Entertainment. 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. <http://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/elephants/scientific-classification/>.
2. ARCHIE, E. A., & CHIYO, P. I. (2012). Elephant behaviour and conservation: social relationships, the effects of poaching, and genetic tools for management. Molecular Ecology, 21(3), 765-778. doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05237.x
3. Wasser, S. K., Clark, B., & Laurie, C. (2009). The ivory trail. Scientific American, (1), 68.
4. Evolution and The Origin of Species. (2013). In Biology (OpenStax College ed., pp. 485-510). Houston: Rice
Each author has the same purpose in writing about the elephant studies and there are many similarities and differences in which the elephants behaved.
Largely known as the biggest animal on the planet, elephant is always considered human’ friendliest wild friend. We have coexisted from the beginning of time, working, sharing this increasingly overcrowded land. In the crazy and fast pacing world of animals and the endless fight over the places in the food chain , elephant is still supposed to be the calmest because, according to some children’s book, those problems are too small compared to the size of the animal. However, it seems that this theory is only true in the childhood fantasy. In “An Elephant Crackup?”, Charles Siebert drills on the downfall of elephants. He gives a depiction of the recent raging and violent acts of the elephants, and presents an educated and almost unexpected
Darwin, Charles, and David Quammen. On the Origin of Species. New York: Sterling, 2008. 349. Print.
Did you know that 100 African elephants are killed each day? According to, At Issue hunting is the practice of pursuing and killing live animals for food, recreation or trade. The Pro View is that hunting is an important component of managing wildlife populations. The Con View is hunting opponents argue that more hunting regulations are needed to prevent animals from going in to extinction (Sirs Data Base). This paper will examine the Pro, Con and my viewpoint on should trophy hunting be banned.
Work Cited Colby, Chris. A. Web. " An Introduction to Evolutionary Biology." 28 August 2015.
Elephants, although they are very large animals, are known to be graceful and sociable. They are among one of the most intelligent, sensitive animals on the planet, perhaps even approaching human intelligence and emotion. But lately, their behavior has changed. When we hear stories of elephants being violent we have to remember that they are wild animals. The fact that we have become so used to seeing them around people does not mean that as a whole they have become domesticated. According to many sources cited by Charles Siebert in his essay “An Elephant Crackup?” one of the reasons given to explain this weird change of behavior was “the precipitous collapse of elephant culture.”
While living in the zoo the elephants are forced to live in artificial social units of two or three. In some cases they are kept alone. The elephants in captivity are deprived of the basic necessity of family and socialization. Any type of bond the animals might create is often broken, as zoos routinely shuffle elephants between facilities and other zoo’s. The effects of inadequate exercise on elephants are often deadly. Elephants are forced to live on hard
How would you feel if your mother was executed in exchange for a reasonable cause? Elephants are facing extinction because of this issue. Tens of thousands of elephants are being killed every year for their tusks made of ivory. According to Center for Conservation Biology, “poaching caused a decline
The common name is the African Elephant, the scientific name is Loxodonta Africana, the phylum is Vertebrata, the class is Mammalia, the order is Proboscidea, and the family is Elephantidae. The Closest Relatives to the African Elephant are: the Asian Elephant, mammoths, primitive proboscidean (mastodons), sea cows, and hyraxes. Scientists believe that the African Elephant evolved from one of its closest relatives, the Sea Cow. The geographical location and range of the African elephant covers all of central and southern Africa. In Ethiopia there are isolated populations that exist around Lake Chad in Mali and Mauritania. Also in Kenya, Rhodesia, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Zaire, and in National parks located in South Africa, as well as several other countries. African Elephants, originally, were found in all of the Sub-Saharan African habitats except desert steppes. Elephants still occupy diverse habitats such as: temperate grassland, tropical savanna and grass lands, temperate forest and rainforest, tropical rainforest, tropical scrub forest, and tropical deciduous forest despite their drastic decline in numbers. However, their migratory patterns and habitat use have changed, due to the fact that they are restricted to protected areas. The elephant can exist in many types of environments but it prefers places that have many trees and bushes, which the elephant needs both for food and shade. They also like warm areas that have plenty of rainfall.
Today elephants are now considered endangered these gentle giants are targeted for their tusks ,the elephants are killed for their tusks because they are made of ivory and that is sold on the black market and used to make knick knacks to sell to tourist which is completely unnecessary, and in just a decade more than 7,137 african rhinos have been lost to poaching (Save the Rhino International) these creatures are being shot and cut up and left to die just for a simple horn. I believe it is extremely barbaric to do this to an animal just for its tusks , horns ,coat, or organs, then leave them to bleed out. Just as overfishing causes imbalances in the whole marine system, our complex web of life on earth depends on careful and thoughtful use of wildlife species and their habitats and if poaching continues at the rate it is many of these hunted species could become severely endanger or even extinct, and no parent wants to explain to their kid why some animals are not in the wild anymore. Animals all over the world are affected by this not just in africa, all kinds of species of tigers and leopards in asia are killed just for their coats because of the unique patterns people find them very valuable but sometimes when these animals are killed they are females with young not to far away and that hurts the population of the species because a majority of the time the cubs or
Have you ever visited a zoo when you were a child? Did you see any large land mammals called elephants? I believe most of you already know the physical appearance of a creature called elephant. However, do you know that elephants are classified into two different types, which are the African and the Asian types? Although the African and the Asian elephants come from the same family taxonomy, each of them shares some differences, such as, the physical characteristics, the living conditions, and the distribution areas.
When shipments are intercepted they are held within that country. This also encourages government’s that are trying to stop the poachers to do more in their country. This indicates that other factors besides legal ivory trade were to blame for the elephant population changes. Parts of Africa have game preserves, wildlife conservation areas and stricter laws to help stop the killing of elephants. Interviews with ivory industry workers indicated that the two main factors responsible for the decline in most ivory markets were the reduction in ivory supply and the decrease in demand, particularly in the West. The lack of demand was driven down in North America, Europe and Japan by an effective anti-ivory campaigns that created stigma, which made buying ivory ethically unacceptable, and by Western governments passing legislation that made the import of most types of elephant ivory illegal, thus introducing risk of prosecution as a factor in buying foreign ivory (Stiles,
Elephants and humans once lived in a peaceful co-existence until the late 1800s when the colonization of Africa began. An ivory ban was passed in the 1980s, without this elephants might be extinct today. Ninety percent of ivory traded after this time was obtained illegally. In 1989 elephants were added to the most endangered species list, “today there are probably no more than 35,000 to 40,000 left in the wild.” (Bagheera). A major decline of elephant populations occurred in the 19th century after guns became more popular, resulting in easier slaughter of innocent elephants in both Asia and Africa. Elephants are also in competition with humans for land space, “By 2050, 63% of remaining elephant rangelands will be compromised by humans” (The
They are the main attraction of the culture. Elephants in Asia help construct things for people. They help by carrying things from one place to the other or holding things for an extended amount of time. They act as machines. They live in matriarchies, it consists of mothers, daughters and baby elephants working together to survive. They can develop feelings and when they lose an elephant, they mourn for their loss. They often revisit the bones of an elephant they lost and touch it with their trunks. They also have a good memory so that helps them remember where food is. It also comes in hand when they have seen hunters or poachers so they know not to go in that specific place. Due to them being hunted or poached, that’s another leading factor to early death. They can live up to 70 years
We do see a prevalence of health issues in captivity with elephants that are not as common in the wild. Elephants in zoos face none of the threats that wild elephants do, such as poaching for their ivory and/or meat, malnutrition during times of drought, occasional natural disease outbreaks or predation. As well, according to the zoo industry, elephants receive superior housing, care and medical attention