❌The rare tuskless genetic condition in Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique has become far more common after years of ivory hunters devastating the species
Around 90% of the country’s elephant population were slaughtered between 1977 to 1992 by Kalashnikov-wielding armed groups for ivory to fund a bloody Cold War-era conflict.
🐘The survivors were likely to share a key characteristic: half the females were naturally tuskless
🧬Like eye color in humans, genes are responsible for whether elephants inherit tusks from their parents
After the war, those tuskless surviving females passed on their genes with expected, as well as surprising, results.
About half their daughters were tuskless. More perplexing, two-thirds of their offspring were female.
However, it is not all good news.
The trait is only seen in female elephants and researchers said that genetic sequencing shows that the trait is linked to a mutation in the X chromosome, which can be fatal to male elephants in the womb.
This means that while the tuskless trait could be useful for elephants when facing poachers, it could also account for lower than normal breeding rates.
There are now about 700 elephants left in the national park.
Saudi Arabia has unveiled plans for a sprawling, oil rig-themed amusement park with flumes and jet skis, as the Gulf state attempts to boost Western tourism
The attraction, dubbed The Rig, will also include:
Scientists are venturing inside otherworldly ice caves growing beneath Austria's doomed glaciers to study why they are melting even faster than expected
📸Lisi Niesner/Reuters
They are also trying to understand the fate that will befall glaciers elsewhere if climate change is not halted
🚀While the missile reportedly missed its target by about two dozen miles, the test shows China has made rapid progress on the lightning-fast weapons and is far more advanced than US intelligence officials had realised.
“We have no idea how they did this,” one official said
Drew Thompson, a former American defence department official with responsibility for China, said the test “really should change US calculations”.
“I think it is a game changer in a way that little else has really shifted the balance”
➡️There have been eight attacks in Mumbai's northwestern suburbs over the past month alone, sparking a debate on the future of the city's historic leopard population…
A 2018 Indian government report found there are only 12,852 of the cats left nationwide, a reduction of 90 percent since the 1990s, due to poaching and habitat destruction.
An Indian leopard in its natural habitat, Getty Images