How Do Elephants Use Their Tusks to Eat?

Tusk Identification

• All elephants, except for the female Asian species, grow a pair of tusks. Elephants will only grow one pair of tusks in their lifetime, although they do grow longer as the elephant ages. Tusks vary in length, exhibiting a straight and thin shape, or a thick and curvy shape. All tusks consist of ivory. The tusks are technically the elephant's incisor teeth.

Eating Habits

• Elephants are plant-eaters, or herbivores. The tusks act as eating tools, alongside the long trunk. Aside from shrubs and tree leaves, elephants enjoy eating tree bark. The tusks easily scrape the bark from the tree trunk's surface for consumption. In addition, deep-seated roots are effortlessly dug up with the tusks, providing an alternative food source. Elephants dig into dry riverbeds with the tusks for obtaining hidden water sources underground.

Tusk Effects On Nature

• Elephants move constantly in search of food and water. Their agile use of the tusks and trunk reshapes regions drastically. A small forest may look like a grassy plain after an elephant herd finishes eating. Trees lay stripped on the ground and large holes remain from digging underground. The large holes, revealing underground water supplies, attract other wild animals to the area in hope of finding refreshment.

Elephant Appetite

• The tusks are an important contribution to the elephants' success in nature. Their large bodies require a lot of food and water for basic functioning. The tusks allow them to eat other plant foods, aside from the leaves and branches that the trunk can grasp. Without the tusks, they could not forage for deep water wells and roots or pry bark from tree trunks. Amazingly, elephants require 220 lbs. of food and 53 gallons of water on a daily basis.

Alternative Tusk Uses

• Tusks are also used in battle. Elephants fight one another for mates or territory. The tusks are also used in social interactions. A simple hello between elephants can involve rubbing tusks, as trunks are intertwined, much like a human handshake.

Humans and Tusks

• Although many countries ban elephant hunting, elephants are still endangered animals. The tusks are a lucrative commodity since they are pure ivory. Illegal poaching leads to a hunter killing an elephant, removing the tusks, and leaving the large animal to die.