Judith Hampton, age 14, of Swannanoa, North Carolina, for her question:
Does an elephant have teeth?
An elephant has a couple of the largest teeth in the world. They are, of course, his handsome ivory tusks. The tusk of the African elephant has been known to measure 11 feet, 5 1/2 inches and weigh 226 1/2 pounds. That surely is a record breaking tooth. And it is not the whole story. An elephant has other teeth in his mouth, each with its own rather remarkable life story.
We tend to forget that an elephant's tusks are really overgrown incisor teeth. Among Indian elephants, only the male has this pair of tusky teeth, growing down from his upper jaw. When young, they were tipped with enamel. In later years, the mighty tusks are made entirely of pure ivory dentine. The Indian elephant's tusks may measure eight feet, nine inches, and weigh about 160 pounds apiece.
Jumbo is a strict vegetarian and though he enjoys tender green foliage, he must be able to chew tough fibrous plant food. For this diet, he needs no canine tearing teeth but he does need some tough chewers. And during his lifetime, he wears out 24 remarkably sturdy molars six on each side of his upper and lower jaws.
His mighty molars are made of up and down plates of dentine, with flat, ridged tops of enamel. They are separated from each other by wads of cement. But strange to say, his 24 chewing teeth are never all on the job at the same time. Early in life, he depends on those nearest the front of each jaw. With years of tough chewing, these teeth wear down and finally fall out.
Meantime, the teeth toward the rear are moving forward, slowly forward. As a front tooth falls out, the one behind it is right there to take over its duties. As the chewing and chomping years go by, the second and third, fourth and fifth teeth are lost from wear and tear. Finally the old elephant is left with only one tooth in each upper and lower jaw.
When he loses one of the final four, he can chew only on one side of his mouth. Naturally this reduces his ability to eat and the poor old fellow begins to feel the burden of his years. When he loses a last tooth from both sides of his mouth, his days are numbered. For an elephant can live only as long as his teeth.
The Indian elephant can expect to reach the age of 70, the African elephant, who tends to dine on tougher food, is usually finished by the age of 50.
The female African elephant has tusks, though smaller ones than the male. Once in a while, an elephant appears with four tusks. Actually they are two pairs of super teeth growing from the two incisor sockets. Elephants have been known to have four or six of these abnormal tusks. One elephant had seven growing from one socket all of them super sized incisor teeth.