Question

The tusk of an elephant is formed from
(a) Skull
(b) Canine
(c) Incisors
(d) Snout

Answer 1

Hint: Elephants have been hunted and killed since times immemorial for their valuable tusks that are hard and durable. It is a modification of the type of teeth which are more developed in herbivores.

Complete answer:
Elephants are considered among the largest living land animals. They are pachyderms or thick- skinned. Their trunk or snout is a modification of the nose and upper lip. It is also known as a proboscis. Elephants have two tusks which are a modification of two upper incisors. Males have a relatively larger tusk than females. Canines are absent in an elephant’s mouth. They use their tusks for defense, digging, assembling food, etc. The trained elephants use their tusks to lift logs.
- The tusk of the elephant is composed of the prized ‘ivory’ which is actually a variety of a coating of dentine.
- Dentine is a collagenous mixture of mineralized connective tissue and proteins. It is further encapsulated in a hard enamel.
- In the elephant, a part of the tusk is embedded in the head that consists of a pulp cavity and nerves. - The exposed portion is made up of dentine and enamel. An elephant tusk keeps on growing in its lifetime though a few changes have been witnessed by scientists in the tusk population due to the side effects of poaching.
- Like, in Mozambique wildlife, elephants with big tusks are a rarer find than the tuskless ones. This has been due to a loss of the ‘big tusk gene’ in the new population of elephants.
- In the early centuries, elephants were hunted for their ivory which was used for various purposes running from art to weapons. Though many countries declared it illegal afterward, poaching still continued.-
- This excessive pressure of poaching resulted in a loss of big tusks in nature for better survival.
So, the correct answer is ‘Incisors.’

Note:
- There are two species of elephants in existence. These are Elephas africana (African Elephant) and Elephas indicus (Asian elephant). Both males and females of African elephants grow tusks. Though a male’s tusk is bigger and heavier than a female’s. In a population of Asian elephants, only males grow tusks.
- Indian elephants can be more easily domesticated and trained than their African counterparts. They are found in the areas of South Asia like India, Burma, Thailand, etc.