In a palm field on the island of Borneo in Malaysia, a team of wildlife specialists found an elephant with two strange tusks. Its tusks grow downward instead of upward as they should.
“This is a very unusual circumstance,” said Sen Nathan, the Sabah State Wildlife Authority’s assistant director. “We’re unsure why the elephant’s tusks grown like that. It might be a birth defect or parental inbreeding.”
In 2015, a similar elephant was discovered in Sabah, Malaysia. The elephant will be relocated to a wildlife park until it can be released into the wild.
“Its pair of tusks resemble a prehistoric saber-tooth tiger, but of course, they are not related,” said Andrew Sebastian, co-founder of conservation and tourism organization Malaysia. “This could help. Wildlife tourism in Sabah becomes more attractive”.
According to a study from ten years ago, around 2,000 elephants live in Sabah state. Mr. Nathan said the most serious danger facing elephants is not illegal hunting, as it is in other places, but rather habitat loss.
