Yahoo – AFP,
August 12, 2016
Kuala
Lumpur (AFP) - A rare pygmy elephant with tusks growing downwards instead of up
to give it a look like a sabre-toothed tiger has been found in Malaysia, a
wildlife official told AFP on Friday.
The unusual
looking animal was found by a team of wildlife experts at a palm oil planation
in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island on Thursday.
"It is
very rare," said Sabah Wildlife Department's assistant director Sen
Nathan.
"We're
not exactly sure why the tusks are like that but it could be a congenital
defect or maybe because of inbreeding."
A similar
elephant was caught on camera a few years ago and in 2015 in Sabah, Nathan
said.
The
wildlife department plans to send the animal to an elephant sanctuary in Sabah
on Saturday until a suitable area in the wild is found where it could be
released with a tracking device attached.
"The
tusks resemble the prehistoric sabre-tooth tiger, but of course, they are not
related," said Andrew Sebastian, co-founder of the Ecotourism and
Conservation Society Malaysia.
"It
could make wildlife watching in Sabah more interesting."
But
Sebastian warned that the rare elephant's reversed tusks might create some
problems when it comes to jostling with other elephants.
A study
done a decade ago showed there were about 2,000 elephants in Sabah. Wildlife
officials said a new study will be conducted soon.
The biggest
threat to elephants in Sabah was not poaching, but loss of habitat due to
modernisation and an increase in the human population, said Nathan.
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