The heaviest recorded pair of tusks, from an elephant in Kenya, weighed almost 200 kilograms. During the 1980s, such a pair was an irresistible lure for poachers and was tantamount to a death sentence for any tusker unlucky enough to wander within gunshot. Elephant trails became the basis for early African roads.
Elephants have only two molars in each jaw at a time.
As molars wear out, they are pushed forward by new molars. But the elephant can only make six molars, so when the the chompers run out, the animal can't eat and it dies. Elephants begin breeding at about age 15. A new-born calf, after 22 months of gestation, weighs about 100 kilograms. Some forest tree seeds have evolved to pass through an elephant's gut and sprout in the dung heap, fertilized and ready to go.