Tooth and tusk :
Tusks are an elephant's incisor teeth and are the only incisors an elephant has. They are used for defense, digging for water and food, and lifting things. The tusks present at birth are milk teeth, which fall out after a year when they are about 12 inches (5 centimeters) long. Permanent tusks extend beyond the lips at about two to three years and grow throughout the animal’s life. The tusks are composed of ivory (dentine) beneath the outer layer of enamel, but the peculiar diamond pattern of the elephant’s tusk gives it a distinctive luster that ivory tusks of other mammals such as hippos, warthogs, walruses, and sperm whales don’t have, and African elephants are sometimes killed by poachers just for their ivory tusks. Elephants also have four molars, one on the top and one on the bottom on both sides of the mouth. One molar can weigh about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) and is the size of a brick! Each elephant can go through up to six sets of molars in its lifetime. New teeth do not erupt vertically, as in most mammals, but grow in from behind, pushing the old worn-out teeth forward and out, like a production line of teeth moving along the jaw from back to front. When elephants get old, their remaining molars are sensitive and worn down, so they prefer to eat softer food. Marshes are the perfect place for soft plant food, so old elephants are often found there. Many times they stay there until they die. This practice led some people to think that elephants went to special burial grounds to die.
Tusks are an elephant's incisor teeth and are the only incisors an elephant has. They are used for defense, digging for water and food, and lifting things. The tusks present at birth are milk teeth, which fall out after a year when they are about 12 inches (5 centimeters) long. Permanent tusks extend beyond the lips at about two to three years and grow throughout the animal’s life. The tusks are composed of ivory (dentine) beneath the outer layer of enamel, but the peculiar diamond pattern of the elephant’s tusk gives it a distinctive luster that ivory tusks of other mammals such as hippos, warthogs, walruses, and sperm whales don’t have, and African elephants are sometimes killed by poachers just for their ivory tusks. Elephants also have four molars, one on the top and one on the bottom on both sides of the mouth. One molar can weigh about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) and is the size of a brick! Each elephant can go through up to six sets of molars in its lifetime. New teeth do not erupt vertically, as in most mammals, but grow in from behind, pushing the old worn-out teeth forward and out, like a production line of teeth moving along the jaw from back to front. When elephants get old, their remaining molars are sensitive and worn down, so they prefer to eat softer food. Marshes are the perfect place for soft plant food, so old elephants are often found there. Many times they stay there until they die. This practice led some people to think that elephants went to special burial grounds to die.
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