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(Beijing) A recent study has predicted that more male Asian elephants in China will be born without tusks because poaching of tusked elephants is reducing the gene pool, the China Daily reported Sunday.

The study, conducted in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan province, where two-thirds of China's Asian elephants live, found that the tuskless phenomenon is spreading, the report said.

The tusk-free gene, which is found in between two and five percent of male Asian elephants, has increased to between five percent and 10 percent in elephants in China, according to Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology at Beijing Normal University.

"This decrease in the number of elephants born with tusks shows the poaching pressure for ivory on the animal," said Zhang, whose research team has been studying elephants since 1999 at a reserve in Xishuangbanna.

Only male elephants have tusks, which are said to be a symbol of masculinity and a weapon to fight for territory. However, due to poaching for ivory, the elephants' pride has become a death sentence, the report said.

"The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," said Zhang. "Therefore, the ones without tusks survive, preserving the tuskless gene in the species."

A similar decline in elephants with tusks has been seen in Uganda, which experienced heavy poaching in the 1970s and '80s, the report said.

However, Zhang's findings of the spread of the tuskless gene due to poaching must be tested, according to some academics.

"This is, of course, a possibility, but till now there is no clear genetic proof that it can occur," Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, was quoted as saying.

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Interesting that when and where money talks, and bullshit walks, people opt for the scientific way of doing things.

Although some things don't work so neatly.

1. Common descent.

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[QUOTE] What they would reject is:
1. Common descent.

2. Speciation.

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That is a worthwhile clarification. Still their position is untenable.

"Speciation" refers to the inability of one specimen to produce viable young with another specimen, because they are too genetically distinct.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
So how long before elephants make the jump from stone tools to landing on the moon inside of about 50 thousand years ?.

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That would make a great question to ask followers of "Intelligent Design": do you think that the various breeds of dog are the work of Evolution, or ID?

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Forty years into our unique lifelong experiment, we believe that Dmitry Belyaev would be pleased with its progress. By intense selective breeding, we have compressed into a few decades an ancient process that originally unfolded over thousands of years. Before our eyes, "the Beast" has turned into "Beauty," as the aggressive behavior of our herd's wild progenitors entirely disappeared. We have watched new morphological traits emerge, a process previously known only from archaeological evidence. Now we know that these changes can burst into a population early in domestication, triggered by the stresses of captivity, and that many of them result from changes in the timing of developmental processes. In some cases the changes in timing, such as earlier sexual maturity or retarded growth of somatic characters, resemble pedomorphosis.

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Originally posted by wedge_oli:

>edited reference to wedgi's favorite cartoon<
[/IMG]

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Maybe it's time we bred a lion and tiger... y'know, for its skills in magic.

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Does the fact that I ask rather than consulting the google oracle make me a lazy sod?

Edited to add: It was a Herculean effort, but here is the answer...

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Under conditions of domestication it is possible to obtain hybrids between equid species. There are records of onager/ass, onager/horse and zebra/horse (zebroids) crosses, but the cross that has been most significant in human history is one between horses and donkeys. Breeding a male donkey to a female horse results in a mule; breeding a male horse to a female donkey produces a hinny.

Offspring from either cross, although fully developed as males or females, are almost always sterile. Hence, a line of horses and a line of domestic asses must be maintained to perpetuate mule or hinny production.

More mule facts.

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But for a line of domestic asses...

[ 19 July 2005: Message edited by: Suzette ]

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Breed male Conservative politicians with R.E.A.L. women. That'll get you some domestic asses.

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