EleFact Friday: On Elephant Tushes

One of the first things that people think of when they think “elephant” is tusks. It’s iconic when it comes to elephant imagery, but female Asian elephants don’t actually have tusks. Many of them have short tusk-like protuberances that seldom grow many inches below the gum line. The longer the tush (we’ve seen some that are as long as 18 inches), the longer the nerve reaches down into it; the shorter the tush, the more internal the nerve is. You can often see Guillermina’s tushes when she puts her trunk up on the bars of the training fence. Not all of the girls have full tushes, as some are born without them and sometimes they break or fall out. They can be easy to fracture in comparison to a tusk, but that is only because tusks have a greater mass and circumference; when tushes break, they begin to grow back, but that can happen at a glacial pace for some. For instance, Rana has a broken tush that is regrowing quite slowly, while Guille’s grow much faster in comparison. So now if you hear something about an elephant tush, you will think of an elephant tooth – and maybe not an elephant behind.

Photo of Guillermina and her right tush

Comments(6)

Carol Goldstein O’Connell says
July 12, 2024 at 2:07 pm

That is soooo interesting…but I prefer the girls’ tushes over tusks or teeth…🙃😆🫶🏻
Sheila says
July 12, 2024 at 3:49 pm

Yes. Asians. Have these. Little TUSHES Some dont. I never have seen any of LADIES at sanctuary have any… ladies r hiding them😃
- REPLY
  Sara says
  July 12, 2024 at 4:05 pm
  
  The girls here all have them.
Charlotte Hansen says
July 13, 2024 at 1:31 am

All new info for me! And, yes, I DID think we were going to talk about elephant butts–they’re so adorable!!
Sir Richard of the Elephants says
July 13, 2024 at 10:35 am

I was under the impression, from what I have read, that a tush has a different composition that a tusk viz a viz the nerve. It is interesting to note that many muknah male Asian elephants Frhave tushes too. Packy from the Portland zoo had thick tushes. I remember seeing a cow elephant in Jaipur with very thick tushes; you would think they would be small tusks. Fritha the elephant whom I called my “best friend” here in New York State, and who Scott knew at one time, had long tushes which her owner used to cut off at the lip. I would imagine that would be terribly painful if there was a nerve down into the tush, The genetics of tusk inheritance in Asian elephants is very interesting. When P. E. P. Deraniyagala published his book, “Some Extinct Elephants, Their Relatives and The Two Living Species,” in 1955, he recognized 8 subspecies of Asian elephants. Each subspecies, from its home range, had a different percent of male tuskers. They seemed to average out to about 70 percent tuskers, ranging from 11% in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to 96% in peninsular India. Possibly more elsewhere. This is, of course, before the crazy lust for ivory grew to its present greedy proportions. I don’t know if there has been any census done on the current situation of tuskers to tush elephants to no trace of tusks at all in many of them.
Carey says
July 14, 2024 at 6:11 pm

Thanks Sara

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