Tusks and Trunks and Mayhem

by Janis Connell

Title

Tusks and Trunks and Mayhem

Artist

Janis Connell

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

I love this early morning closeup of a "memory of elephants" as they are called when in a group. It's all tusks and trunks and mayhem. And it shows the elephant calf trying to learn how to use his trunk. The elephant's trunk contains over 40,000 muscles, divided into as many as 150,000 individual units. It is a fusion of the nose and the upper lip and can be used for breathing, smelling, touching, grasping, and producing sound. It's always moving.
I love their tusks too. Elephant tusks are actually elongated incisors--so they are teeth. Though their tusks are long, come out of their mouths, and are important for digging up roots, breaking off bark, moving away unwanted vegetation, and fending off rivals, they are basically made of the same ivory as the rest of their teeth! Unfortunately, this precious ivory is what has resulted in the deaths of thousands of these beautiful animals.
And elephants are usually right- or left-tusked. The master tusk is usually more worn down or even broken. And the average tusk size is going down over time.
Why are elephant tusks getting smaller? Because of hunting and poaching for ivory. The elephants with the biggest tusks are most likely to be targeted, so they get killed and aren’t able to pass on their big-tusk genes to future generations.

Uploaded

November 19th, 2019

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Viewed 174 Times  -  Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/01/2024 at 6:32 AM

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