Elephant Tusks - Uses for Ivory

I found some more elephant items while looking for some things in my kitchen.  

Today’s picture shows two elephants guarding a toothpick holder.  I wonder if they think the toothpicks are their missing tusks.

An elephant’s tusks are actually its teeth.  They are the incisors.  Much of the tusk is made up of dentine, a hard and dense bony tissue. The entire tusk is wrapped in enamel, the hardest animal tissue.  

Elephants use their tusks for digging, lifting objects, gathering food, stripping bark from trees to eat and for defense. The tusks also protect their trunk. 

Elephant tusks from Africa average about 2 metres long and weigh about 50 pounds each.  Asian elephants are somewhat smaller. The elephant’s tusk grows in layers.  The last layer to be produced is the inside layer.  About a third of the tusk is embedded in the bone sockets of the elephant’s skull.  Elephant’s tusks do not grow back.  

Elephants have evolved to be tuskless because of ivory poaching.  Researchers have discovered that years of civil war and poaching in Mozambique have led to a larger proportion of elephants that will never develop tusks.  Not having tusks makes it harder for elephants to survive.  They can’t lift branches and trees easily, scratch bark or protect themselves. 

Ivory is made from the tusks and teeth of elephants, whales, hippos and several other animals. Many tusk-bearing species have been hunted commercially and as a result several are endangered. 

Elephant ivory has been used for piano keys, billiard balls, and other items for human enjoyment. At the peak of the ivory trade during the colonization of Africa, about 800 to 1000 tonnes of ivory was sent to Europe.  

Despite a ban on international trade, African elephants are still being poached. Elephants are being killed every year for their ivory tusks. The USA implemented a near-total ban on elephant ivory trade in 2016.  The UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and other ivory markets followed suit.  China closed its legal domestic ivory market at the end of 2017.

Ivory was used in ancient Egypt.  Archaeologists have recovered many practical tools made out of ivory.  They found buttons, hairpins, chopsticks, spear tips, bow tips, needles, combs, buckles, billiard balls and many other items. 

Why is ivory so important?  In Africa, it has been a status symbol for thousands of years.  Why?  Because ivory comes from elephants. Elephants are a highly respected animal and ivory is fairly easy to carve into works of art. 

Today ivory is used in the manufacture of piano and organ keys, billiard balls, handles and minor objects of decorative value.  It is also used in the manufacture of electrical appliances, including electrical equipment for airplanes and radar. 

# living life abundantly    # published author