tusk weight
Average Tusk Weight
Per Tusk: 6 - 8 kg - i.e. per elephant: 12 - 16 kg
The a.m. average tusk weight refers to illegal ivory seized nowadays. As poaching is soaring, wild elephants with big tusks can hardly be found in the wild any more. Therefore poachers are targeting elephants with shorter and smaller tusks, too. Not so long ago the ivory found had an average tusk weight of approx. 10 - 18 kg, which is now considerably lower.
Tusk Dimensions - historically:
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Biggest elephant tusk |
3.49 m length (measured at the outer bend) Origin: Zaire. Today in the New York Zoologic Society, Bronx Zoo.
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Biggest ivory tusks known in Europe (ivory museum) |
2,90 m 64 kg each |
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Longest tusk, prehistoric times |
5 m Elephant Hersperoloxodon antiqus germanicus (Lived approx. 2 million years ago) Up to 100 kg per tusk |
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Heaviest tusk |
117 kg Origin: Dahomey (Benin). Was exhibited on the Paris World Fair in 1900. |
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Heaviest fossile tusk |
150 kg Circumference 89 cm, Length 3,58 m Mammoth species |
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Mammoth tusks |
Up to 5 m length 100 kg per piece (Age 10,000 - 60,000 years) |
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Mammoth tusk (ivory museum) |
3 m length 66 kg |