I was just at the La Brea Tar Pits this weekend and wondered if the shorter tusks of elephants were an adaptation resulting from ivory harvesting. There is recent discussion of tuskless elephants due to poaching. They went from 15 to 9̶1̶ 51 percent of certain populations over the course of 15 years!
I think the numbers went from 15% to 33%, with 91 being the number of female elephants in the sample group. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/female-elephants-a... Per that article, tuskless male elephants don't survive, usually not even to birth.
Ah. TIL male African elephants must have tusks to be viable, but male Asian elephants can be tuskless, and in some regions up to 90% of male Asian elephants can be tuskless (per https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/asian-elephant).
Regarding the female African elephant percentage discrepancy, both of which seem to be pulled from the same paper, it seems 33% refers to new born and 51% refers to all females.
