According to my World Book Encyclopedia, ivory comes from the tusks of elephant and walrus, the teeth of the hippopotamus, and the horn of the Narwhal (horned whale). Although these are all variations of teeth, evidently ivory is different from a normal tooth because it bends without breaking.

Therefore, technically speaking, elk canine teeth or ' " ivory" is probably not ivory.

The following is from the Canadian Wildlife Services website.

" Unlike other deer, elk have upper canine, or " eye," teeth. These teeth are a hangover from earlier evolutionary stages and now serve no apparent purpose. Their smooth rounded surface has made them attractive as jewellery. In the 1800s many elk were killed just to obtain the canine teeth."


The name " wapiti" is Shawnee Indian for " white rump." The European animals called " elk" are actually Eurasian moose.

North American elk (Cervus elaphus spp.) are subspecies of the European red deer (Cervus elaphus). The Swedish red deer (Cervus elaphus elaphus) is the " type species," all other red deerare considered supspecies of this species. Some people now refer to the some of the red deer of Russia/Mongolia/China as wapiti.

Here is an excerpt from my Elk Addict' s Manual.

History
Deer first appear in fossil records around 13 million years ago in Eurasia. However, elk do not appear in the North American fossil records until about 120,000 years ago, when they crossed the Bering land bridge. Once on the North American continent they moved south and east. Around 70,000 years ago they were isolated into four different populations. One of these was found in the Alaska/Yukon region, one in the Washington/Oregon coastal region, another in western California, and the largest population east of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains, extending to the Appalachian Mountains and into southern Canada and northern Mexico. The Washington/Oregon population later evolved into two different subspecies, the Olympic (Roosevelt) elk of the southwestern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northwestern Californa; and the Tule Elk of central California.

As the Wisconsin Glacial age ended around 10,000 years ago, a population of elk was isolated from the large eastern population and became the now extinct Merriam’s Elk of Mexico and the southwestern United States.

As the Great Plains evolved the remainder of the eastern populations became separated again. One of these populations may have evolved with the Great Plains to become the Manitoba Elk. At the same time the eastern population was separating into two more groups, those of the eastern deciduous forests became the now extinct Eastern Elk; those of the western coniferous forests became the Rocky Mountain Elk. These six subspecies inhabited most of North America when the Europeans first arrived.

T.R.