Tusklessness
Explanation
The Joke
A mother explains to her daughter that elephants have been hunted by humans for ivory, so as a result, smaller and tuskless elephants have been selected for. She notes that if the trend continues, one day all elephants will be tuskless. The daughter asks: "What's your point?" and then raises a chilling hypothetical -- what if horses are all just unicorns that evolved to lose their horns because people used to hunt them? The implication is that there is now an entire race of sapient, magical beings who have reason to hate humanity, are patiently observing us, and are being bred in ever-greater numbers. The final panel shows horses conspiring, noting that "the little one is on to us" while assuring each other "no one will believe her."
The Humor
The comic begins with a real, well-documented biological phenomenon (selection pressure causing tusklessness in elephants) and then takes it to an absurd extreme by applying the same logic to unicorns. The daughter's leap from elephants losing tusks to horses being de-horned unicorns is a perfect example of technically valid reasoning leading to an insane conclusion. The final panel, showing the horses as sentient conspirators quietly plotting against humanity, transforms a cute evolutionary biology lesson into a paranoid horror scenario. The comedy is amplified by the contrast between the mundane appearance of horses and their implied secret intelligence and malice.
References
The comic references real research on African elephants, where poaching for ivory has created selection pressure favoring tuskless elephants. Studies in places like Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park have documented significant increases in tusklessness among elephant populations due to decades of ivory poaching.