Mike Hartman, age 11, of St. Louis, Mo., for his question:

HOW BIG ARE AN ELEPHANT'S TUSKS?

An elephant's child is born with a pair of milk tusks, about two inches long. He sheds them before his second birthday, and they are replaced by permanent tusks that keep growing throughout his life. Hence the largest tusks belong to the old timers. Some of the largest tusks on record belonged to the male African elephant. They were about 11 1/2 feet long and weighed more than 226 pounds. The smaller female of Africa has smaller tusks.

The Indian elephant    is quite a bit smaller than the wild elephant of Africa  and only the males grow large tusks. Sometimes the female has a pair of very small tusks, but the female Ceylon elephant has none at all. The tusks of a healthy old Indian elephant may measure somewhat more than 8 feet long and weigh perhaps 150 pounds.