TUSKER TUESDAY Dawie Fourie kindly shares his beautiful paintings and thoughts on tusks and Big Tuskers with us this week.... Usually in mammals tusks are enlarged canine teeth, but in elephants they are actually elongated incisors and are essentially no different from other teeth. One third of the tusk is actually hidden from view, embedded deep in the elephant’s head. This part of the tusk is a pulp cavity made up of tissue, blood and nerves. The visible, ivory part of the tusk is made of dentine with an outer layer of enamel. Up to 80% of the tusk is made up of inorganic material with the remaining 20 % consisting of organic material and water. Because of this, elephant tusks gradually lose weight after death until all the moisture in the tusk is lost. The heaviest pair of elephant tusks ever recorded came from a bull that was shot on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The right tusk weighed 102.3kg when it was collected in 1899 – today the tusk weighs 94kg. The left tusk weighed 97.3kg when it was collected – it now weighs 89kg) Elephant ivory is unique which when viewed in cross-sections reveals criss-cross lines that form a series of diamond shapes. Elephant tusks never stop growing so some old bulls display enormous examples. Historic records show that “Hundred Pounders” were once much more common than now. However, the average size of tusks has decreased over the past hundred years because poaching and unregulated hunting of elephants for their ivory has resulted in the ‘big tusk gene’ becoming increasingly rare. My three paintings for today shows a young bull playing in the water. His tusks are still small, but judging by their size, and his age, it is unlikely that he will ever grow big ivory. My second painting shows a mature bull in his prime, and even though he has a good set of tusks they will probably never grow to 100 pounds. It has been estimated in the past that about 0,5 % of all bulls will eventually grow tusks of more than 100 pounds (45kg), but even fewer will ever grow tusks of more than 60kg. My third painting shows magnificent Mandleve from the Kruger who’s right tusk weighs 73.5 kg (162 pounds),
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 08:25:15 +0000