Kuala Lumpur, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian wildlife experts recently discovered a Bornean pygmy elephant with ivory growing under its mouth and on the inside of its body. This feature is similar to that of the extinct saber-toothed tiger.
In general, the tusks of Bornean pygmy elephants are bent outwards and upwards, but the tusks of this elephant are not only bent inwards, but also downwards. Malaysia's Sin Chew Daily quoted Sennadan, assistant director of the Wildlife Department of Sabah, as saying that wildlife experts found the pygmy elephant while observing the migration of the elephant herd on the 11th of this month. "This rarely happens, but all elephants have their own unique shapes."
The Sabah Wildlife Department has decided to release the elephant back into the reserve and release it into the wild when a suitable location is found.
The Borneo pygmy elephant is a subspecies of the Asian elephant, small in size, living mainly in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Kalimantan, and currently has a population of about 1500, which is an endangered species.
It is understood that the main threat to the Bornean pygmy elephants is that the forest area is decreasing year by year, resulting in their increasing exposure to human activities, and human-elephant conflicts occur from time to time in Sabah. In addition, some people illegally set traps in oil palm plantations, often resulting in the injury of pygmy elephants. (End)