Question

The tusks of elephants are modified ________.

Answer 1

Animals in the wild have special adaptations for their defence and to perform certain tasks. Predators have teeth and claws to defend themselves. While herbivores protect themselves through external structures like horns and tusks or through camouflage.

Complete answer:
Elephants are the largest terrestrial mammal found in Africa and Asia. They have distinctive features like a trunk, pillar-like legs, large earflaps, and sensitive tough skin. Each of these organs support the huge weight and body of an elephant. The trunk to fetch food and water to feed themselves, breathing and to move objects. Earflaps to regulate their body temperature and for communication. The legs to carry their huge body. The skin has hairs on them. They cover themselves with sand to protect their body from UV rays.
The tusks are an interesting structure unique to elephants. It is nothing but a modification of their second incisor of the upper jaw. The milk teeth are replaced with tusks around the time they are 12 months old. It grows at a rate of 17 cm per year.

Thus, the tusks of elephants are modified incisors.

Note: The tusks are used for foraging, digging the ground for water, resting their heavy trunk, carrying objects and as a weapon during conflicts. The length and size of it is also an indicative of their age. The tusk is also called ivory. They are attached to the skull and are living. About one third of the tusk is hidden within its skull while the remaining portion is visible outside. Hence, to take out the ivory, the poachers kill the whole organism. Because of this reason the length of the tusks in elephants have decreased by half and in some cases they are tuskless naturally.