Some people may wonder why Sak Surin, a Thai elephant gifted to Sri Lanka about two decades ago and recently repatriated due to ill health, has such long and beautifully-shaped tusks, unlike most other elephants they have seen.

Warangkhana Langkaphin, the chief vet of the Lampang Elephant Hospital, has the answer.

She said there are various kinds of elephant tusks and each has a different growth rate. The length of the tusks often depends on the animal’s lifestyle.

Wild elephants use their tusks to fight and forage for food, so their tusks are usually eroded. Domesticated elephants, like Sak Surin, do not have to use their tusks, which are actually are elongated front teeth, for those purposes and they remain undamaged.

The vet said that an elephant’s tusks can grow continually throughout their lives, unlike human being’s teeth which stop growing.

Sak Surin’s tusks are in a beautiful shape, like arms holding an alms bowl. Sri Lanka, therefore, had used Sak Surin in religious parades carrying the Lord Buddha’s relics.