No, not the elephants that live in DC and Kansas. I mean the real kind that live in India and Africa. From the
Reuters feed today:
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese elephants are evolving into an increasingly tuskless breed because poaching is changing the gene pool, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
How is this happening? And what the heck does this have to do with politics? More on the extended.
Five to 10 percent of Asian elephants in China now had a gene that prevented the development of tusks, up from the usual 2 to 5 percent, the China Daily said, quoting research from Beijing Normal University.
"The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," said researcher Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology. "Therefore, the ones without tusks survive, preserving the tuskless gene in the species."
Since only male elephants have tusks, there were now four female elephants for each male in China, up from the ideal ratio of two, the paper said.
Similar changes in elephant tusk development and sex ratios have been reported in Africa and India.
On the one hand, its frightening and extremely sad to think that man's greed and some cultures' sexual superstitions which feed the demand for the ivory market could result in a world where elephants don't have tusks. On the other hand, it is demonstration of the utter resiliency of the natural world to our predations.
Evolution is powerful. Its not something we can escape. And in the case of the elephant, it may achieve something that all the hard work of great organizations like the World Wildlife Fund have not been able to achieve: saving the elephant.
Its also a real live before our eyes PROOF of evolution. There's no need to argue over missing links and piles of dinosaur bones with the rightwinguts of religious right. You want proof of evolution, Mr. and Mrs. Wingnut? Allow me to introduce you to the elephant. Pull up a chair - you can watch the evolution happen before your very eyes, in real-time, as we see the evolution of the tuskless elephant.