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Re: more on aquatic eleph
chris brochu (gator@mail.utexas.edu)
26 Nov 1995 02:59:45 GMT
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.951120143158.4027A-100000@curly.cc.utexas.edu>
David Froehlich, eohippus@curly.cc.utexas.edu writes:
>Well the easiest answer (and the one you should be capable of looking up
>yourself) is that they use the tusks as tools. Both Loxodonta and
>Elephas use the tusks to pry, rip, excavate, etc. Wear facets on the
>ventral surfaces of mammoth tusks suggest that they used theirs to clean
>snow off of grazing areas. Are these functions purely aquatic?
Another question I'd like AAS-folk to address -- if tusks are strongly
correlated with water living, and if proboscideans must have used tusks
for some sort of aquatic task, why are tusks absent in the possible
semiaquatic proboscideans from the Eocene?
chris
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