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Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

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Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#61

Post by vmception »

geoffmanning wrote: post #47
vmception wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful, lucky, bad Incredible, good

Not quite sure what you're getting at. The definitions of those words can't simply be categorized as good or bad. Beautiful and lucky do, however, somewhat infer a positive outcome in the context they were used. Incredible infers neither positive nor negative. It means that it's simply extraordinary that such a thing could occur, outside the bounds of previous beliefs.

I personally find the natural selection process to be beautiful to witness, the adaptive pressures to be incredible, and the cause to be tragic

Not mutually exclusive

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#62

Post by BitwiseFool »

mysterydip wrote: post #53

What if unicorns at one point existed, but were hunted for the superstitious power of their horns, leaving only the hornless to reproduce and eventually eliminate the gene? How would we know?

There are plenty of horses and horse-ancestors in the fossil record. We would at least expect to see some horn material preserved. Failing that, there would be evidence on the skull itself due to how the attachment of the horn would leave evidence of its existence on the bone of the skull. You would probably also expect to see some horns in archaeological caches. I know they sometimes find narwhal tusks in burial sites.

Interestingly enough, there was a creature that very much looks like a unicorn, but it is a rhinoceros and not an equine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmotherium

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#64

Post by [deleted] »

Apocryphon wrote: post #57
mysterydip wrote: post #53

What if unicorns at one point existed, but were hunted for the superstitious power of their horns, leaving only the hornless to reproduce and eventually eliminate the gene? How would we know?

Where are all of the heirloom artifacts made from unicorn ivory?

[deleted]

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#65

Post by optymizer »

abruzzi wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #8

Honest question from someone who knows virtually nothing about chemistry or material science: is there a difference in quality between synthetic and natural ivory? If not, why is poaching even still a viable market?

as an amateur pianist, I've played pianos with and without ivory keys, and the feel of ivory is a bit better. I'm not sure why, but it seems like it doesn't get as slick from sweat as you play. Of course, piano keys are not the cause of current ivory demand to the best of my knowledge, and I'll happily take non-ivory keys.

could it be because ivory is porous, wicking away the moisture?

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#66

Post by ceejayoz »

AtNightWeCode wrote: post #63

Evolution is in general very slow when it comes to animals. I have my doubts if poaching is the true cause or if there is some environmental reason.

Evolution needn't be slow. We've evolved (via unnatural selection) chickens over just a few decades to have more and more white breast meat, to the point where they can't stand up on their own. We've rapidly evolved dog breeds to have characteristics we covet.

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#67

Post by pm215 »

mysterydip wrote: post #53

What if unicorns at one point existed, but were hunted for the superstitious power of their horns, leaving only the hornless to reproduce and eventually eliminate the gene? How would we know?

I think we'd expect to see vestiges of the no-longer-outwardly-visible horn in the skeleton and perhaps during fetal development, like with human tails.

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#68

Post by xupybd »

1cvmask wrote: post #55
bogwog wrote: post #6

> Researchers found the number of tuskless female elephants in Mozambique increased by almost double over 30 years. This overlaps with a period of civil conflict, where armed forces slaughtered 90% of the elephant population to produce ivory. This ivory went on to finance the conflict. People suck.

The civil war and conflict was created by white colonizers and CIA (America): https://www.africanexponent.com/post/4981-civil-war-in-mozam...

Whilst I agree that this was a proxy in the cold war and that Colonial history messed up Africa big time, I don't understand what you are trying to say here?

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#69

Post by nemo44x »

AtNightWeCode wrote: post #63

Evolution is in general very slow when it comes to animals. I have my doubts if poaching is the true cause or if there is some environmental reason.

Because the ones with tusks are being removed from pool (killed) before they can reproduce. Therefore their genes are not replicated and that characteristic goes away.

It’s more selection than “evolution” but they work together.

Re: Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

#70

Post by Apocryphon »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #62
mysterydip wrote: post #53

What if unicorns at one point existed, but were hunted for the superstitious power of their horns, leaving only the hornless to reproduce and eventually eliminate the gene? How would we know?

There are plenty of horses and horse-ancestors in the fossil record. We would at least expect to see some horn material preserved. Failing that, there would be evidence on the skull itself due to how the attachment of the horn would leave evidence of its existence on the bone of the skull. You would probably also expect to see some horns in archaeological caches. I know they sometimes find narwhal tusks in burial sit…

There's also no cultural record of legends of "unicorn hunts" unlike say hunting the white stag.
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