The unexpected evolution of an African Elephant, found by biologist Shane Campbell-Staton, has fascinated researchers across the international community.
By: Atom 9.2
In the western half of Africa, elephants were intensively hunted. People hunt for ivory because they are very rare, which means they can be sold at a very expensive price. The new generation of African elephants evolved towards ‘tusklessness’. The research started in 2016, when Shane Campbell-Staton, a biologist from Princeton University, found the abnormal evolution of African elephants for the first time on the internet through a video that featured a group of elephants in the national park of Mozambique. He saw that most of the elephants there lacked the presence of tusks, despite the tuskless population only covering 2% of all African elephants. When Staton went to look at the current number of tuskless elephants, and compared it to the past recorded number, he found that the number of tuskless elephants increased from 18.5 % to 33% in the GorongGosa national park between 1997-2004.
The increase in tuskless elephants is not accidental. In the Mozambican Civil War, which lasted for 15 years, both sides hunted for ivory to sell and use the money to support their side and gain power. In the war, the population of wild elephant population in Mozambique decreased by 90%, while the population of tuskless elephants increased. This decrease tasted after war as well: in 1995 to 2004, one in three of the African elephants were tuskless.
The fast and unexpected evolution of elephants is not an accident. Other the statistics, the biologists have suggested that the fast evolution of African can affect the genes that are passing through generations. Experts predict that the next generation may have defective teeth and tusk formation. Even this evolution can save many elephants lives, but this evolution may change lots of elephants behave in nature.
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