Title: The Truth About Tusks - The Dodo
Headings: The Truth About Tusks
The Truth About Tusks
A True/False Quiz
All elephants grow tusks.
No two tusks are alike.
If an elephant breaks a tusk it will grow back.
All elephant teeth are ivory.
We can tell an elephant's age by the length of its tusk.
A tusk can be removed without killing the elephant.
Like an iceberg, much of an elephant's tusk is below the surface.
Only elephants produce ivory.
We can prevent poaching by dying or scarring the tusks of living elephants.
There is an alternative to ivory.
It is okay to buy and sell "antique" ivory items.
The United States has banned the sale of ivory.
There isn't much you can do to stop poachers.

Content: True! Only two thirds of the elephant's tusk is made of ivory and is visible while the elephant is living. The base of the tusk is embedded in the skull and made of pulp, blood and nerves -like the roots of our own teeth. Only elephants produce ivory. False! Ivory can be taken from hippos, walruses, sperm whales, horn-billed birds and even from fossilized mammoths. What makes elephant ivory so prized is its softer carvability. We can prevent poaching by dying or scarring the tusks of living elephants. False! Though many have proposed solutions like this, they are impractical as elephants would have to be darted with anesthetic or their watering holes infused with dye.