How Prehistoric Mammoth Tusks Could Help Bust Modern-Day Ivory Smugglers

Selling elephant ivory – a white material hard of elephant defenses, for which elephants are often killed – is illegal. The sale of ivory collected in the remains of mammoths extinct, however, is – once – not. Because the two are difficult to distinguish, illegal traders slide under the radar by mixing elephant ivory with legally exchange ivory. A new forensic tool, however, could soon put an end to this harmful tip.

Wildlife legists’ doctors in China suggest that authorities can differentiate ivory from ivory mammoth elephants by analyzing Stable isotopes (Forms of an element that do not decompose over time). If this approach is widely adopted, it could serve as a rapid screening for samples before applying more expensive and long methods.

“Mammoth ivory costs a fraction of the price of elephant ivory, but the two are considered to be completely different materials by sculptors and experts, because Mammoth Ivory generally does not have the deep and creamy white color of the ivory elephant”, Pavel Toropov, a researcher from the University of Hong Kong and an author of the study published today in the newspaper Boundariessaid in a border statement. “A merchant compared them to a” Lamborghini and a Ford “. Mammoth ivory cannot be a real substitute for elephant ivory, but its value can constitute legal coverage for elephant ivory. »»

Currently, the most precise way to distinguish the two ivories is via molecular analysis (studying molecules) or dating with radiocarbon (a technique to date of organic equipment), which are both expensive and take time.

Isotopes ratios vary depending on factors as the environment. Since the mammoths of the ice age preserved in high latitude Siberian permafrost lived in a habitat completely different from today’s tropical elephants, isotopic relationships of their defenses should be different. In this context, Toropov and his team decided to determine whether the analysis of these differences could provide a better method to distinguish the two types of ivory.

The team carried out stable isotopes analyzes on 44 pieces of ivory elephants and 35 pieces of ivory mammoth, specifically student stable isotopic relationships of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. Although this approach has revealed a notable overlap for carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotopic reports between the two ivories, the researchers have documented very little overlap in the elephant and mammoth isotopes for oxygen and none for hydrogen.

“Indeed, the elements of water drunk by mammoths in high latitude regions such as Siberia have distinct isotopic signatures compared to the elements of water ingested by elephants in tropical latitudes,” explained the first author Maria Santos, also a researcher of the University of Hong Kong. In simple terms, the analysis of stable isotopic relationships of oxygen and hydrogen in a suspected ivory object is an effective means of determining whether it comes from an elephant or a mammoth.

Although more research is necessary before this approach can be used in a legal case, “we hope that the protocol described in our study will be applied to detect large lots of ivory objects supposedly mammoth,” added Santos. “Samples that have an isotopic signature of elephant ivory can then be tested with more expensive and long methods, such as radiocarbon dating.

The way I see it, there is an even simpler solution: to make all illegal ivory.