Elephants are EVOLVING to not grow tusks after years of being hunted by poachers

**PHDNM** · 11-12-2018, 08:59 AM

Elephants are EVOLVING to not grow tusks after years of being hunted by poachers who have wiped out nearly 90% of their number in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park

Elephants are evolving to not grow their tusks after years of being hunted and killed by poachers, research reveals.

Almost 90 per cent of African elephants in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park were slaughtered for their ivory to finance weapons in the country's civil war.

But around a third of females - the generation born after the war ended in 1992 - have not developed tusks, recent figures suggest.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-poachers.html

Caveat Emptor · 11-12-2018, 09:17 PM

That's really interesting, fascinating adaptation

**Loki** · 11-12-2018, 09:27 PM

No, they are not evolving! It is natural selection.... hunters take out elephant bulls that have the largest tusks. And ones with smaller tusks are left to breed. Then eventually, the gene for large tusks, or any tusks, gets depleted in the gene pool... hence eventually tusks are lost. In Africa there is a good example of that -- in Addo Elephant Park in South Africa, the population stem from only a handful of elephants, and the females didn't have tusks in the original small family. Now there are over 500 elephants, but only bulls have tusks, cows are born without any tusks. The gene for tusks in cows have been bred out.

**Richmondbread** · 11-12-2018, 09:29 PM

Evolution is a myth.

**~~Cristiano viejo~~** · 11-12-2018, 09:32 PM

Very intelligent animal.
Much more than many "humans"

**~~Kamal900~~** · 11-13-2018, 01:28 AM

Originally Posted by Richmondbread

Evolution is a myth.

Riiight..cuz the fossil evidence and genetics means shit to you, huh?

**Richmondbread** · 11-13-2018, 02:12 AM

Originally Posted by Toppo900

Riiight..cuz the fossil evidence and genetics means shit to you, huh?

But there is none.

**Loki** · 11-13-2018, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by Toppo900

Riiight..cuz the fossil evidence and genetics means shit to you, huh?

The fossil evidence does not support Darwinian evolution. On the contrary. We don't find any transitional fossils between different kinds of animals to show they have evolved from another. And also in humans... there is absolutely no "missing link" in the fossil record between humans and apes. For example, all the so-called australopithecine bones were hoaxes, or insufficient in evidence (belonged to apes, or other species).

And genetics absolutely does not support Darwinian evolution either. You've been lied to.

**Blondie** · 11-13-2018, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Richmondbread

Evolution is a myth.

What?

Do you mean losing a tail, as humans and other great apes have done? Do you mean vestigial organs, such as the eyes of fish in caves, where there is no light, so the eyes have lost their ability to see? Evolution is the gaining, and losing, of characteristics due to natural selection, that's scientific fact.