A mysterious tuskless male African elephant has baffled scientists in Samburu, challenging established genetic evidence that only females are born without tusks.
The 13-year-old elephant, part of the Hawaiian Island family, was first spotted by Save the Elephants as a young calf in Samburu National Reserve in 2011.
"The discovery of a tuskless male African elephant in northern Kenya has left researchers puzzled," Save the Elephants said in a statement.
Although researchers continued to monitor his progress, the elephant never grew any semblance of tusks -- a feature that usually appears around the age of two and a half.
Save the Elephants, a research and conservation organisation, said the elephant's mother, named Kauai, was also tuskless. This left scientists with many questions as to whether he had inherited 'tusklessness' from his mother.
This unique case is believed to be the first publicly documented case of a male African elephant born without tusks.
The statement also revealed that tuskless elephants have sadly become a common sight in several parts of Africa. According to Save the Elephants, this is largely due to the targeted killing of tusked individuals by ivory poachers. Tuskless individuals often manage to avoid slaughter and pass this trait on to the next generation. This spread of 'tusklessness' is evident in a study conducted in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique.
Save the Elephants says more genetic evidence is needed to unravel this mystery and is now calling on the elephant research community in Africa to provide evidence of congenital male tusklessness in savannah elephant bulls.
The contributions will help the research and protection organisation build a comprehensive database that will help map the distribution of tuskless male elephants on the African continent. It will also help understand whether or not the male tusklessness condition is restricted to certain populations or is linked to environmental factors.
"In the long term, we hope to conduct genetic investigations on these tuskless bulls, in order to determine whether or not male tusklessness is an inherited condition," said Save the Elephants.
Save the Elephants has been observing and studying the lives of elephants for more than three decades, gaining fundamental insights into how elephants behave and make decisions.
