7 Teeth and Tusks

There are also some awesome facts about elephants concerning their teeth and tusks. We are born toothless, and age brings a perfect set of teeth (most of the time). Elephants go through the same process as tusks. Elephants use these tusks to dig, carry heavy weight, and sometimes as a part of mating rituals. It is illegal now, but elephants were constantly hunted for their tusks. Poaching the elephants is considered to be one of the prime reasons for a decrease in the length of tusks.

Elephants can eat about 150 kg of vegetation each day, and such heavy eating causes their teeth to wear out quickly, which is why they have around 6 or 7 sets of teeth. The first pair, consisting of four lamellar teeth, fall out before one year, and subsequent ones also appear in batches of four. The elephant does not move them to the right and left, like a cow or a camel, but in its own way – forward and backward. In old age, the teeth stop renewing, and the elderly animal is doomed to a painful death from starvation because the caring youth cannot chew food for him, as was the custom in primitive human tribes.