Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 113, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1919 — “Left-Handed" Elephants. [ARTICLE]

“Left-Handed" Elephants.

Not many people are aware that elephants are “right-handed” and "lefthanded” in using their and that an examination of the tusks of any particular elephant will reveal the class to which the elephant belongs. An elephant uses only one tusk most of the time it is digging for salt earth, uprooting trees or tearing up roots, says a contributor to an English maga.zine. When its working tusk becomes badly broken it turns to the other, just as a man who has Injured his right hand takes to his left. The tusk must be very severely damaged before It will give up using It in preference to the other. The working tusk becomes worn and smooth toward the end—so much worn, in fact, that it is often appreciably shorter than the other, and frequently the tip has been broken off. After that has happened the jagged edge becomes gradually worn smooth, and tn the course of years pointed again, but the working tusk is always blunter than the other.