Why does a vampire have tusks?

Question

Earlier this morning, I received 4 mummified corpses carbon-dated back to the late 17th century. Let's name these based on their unique traits: Fang, Saw, Bunny and the Boar.

On closer examination, Fang had a big hole in the chest, suggesting that the vampire was killed by a pointed object like a spear or a giant nail.
Saw, on the other hand, did not suffer any visible sign of injury; however, there are some signs of severe tooth decay, so he probably died from infection.
Now Bunny, the youngest of them, was skinny and buried together with her favorite things, all of which consisted of many vivid colors, except for red and pink. This vampire could have died from anemia, or maybe she was just hemophobic.

What still mystified me the most is the Boar! This vampire is the oldest and the most well-built of any vampire that I've ever come across. The body is in good condition, well-preserved in a block of ice. According to a report, the Boar fell into an ice lake while being chased by villagers for many days.

Obviously the Boar drowned, but what's the deal with the tusks, what kind of advantages did it bring?

Answer 1

"The Boar" was one of several subspecies of vampire to evolve hollow, hypodermic fangs which suck blood from its prey, rather than solid ones used to punch through skin and cause bleeding.

However, hollow, hypodermic teeth are fragile. They have a tendency to get damaged if the thing being fed on punches the vampire in the face. Therefore, there was a strong selection pressure among this subpopulation to evolve something capable of defending those weak teeth; or, rather, the subspecies which didn't rapidly died out due to damage to their feeding organs resulting in them not reproducing.

One individual vampire, however, had a mutation: large, robust teeth pointing upwards. Tusks. These tusks covered the hypodermic teeth behind them and stopped prey from damaging them. And so the vampire with the tusks survived and made more vampires and that's how you get the Boar subspecies of vampires.

Answer 2

Tusked vampires are a rare subspecies of the vampire family. They are only really found outside of urbanized areas, with highest concentrations in large forested areas. Because of their limited contact with humans, this subspecies is known to reach ages far surpassing that of their better-known fanged brethren.

They are the largest and strongest of their species. They are usually hunched, which gets more pronounced with age. They are as comfortable moving bipedally as they are moving in quadrupedal fashion.

Known for being the most animal-like of the vampire family, they don't drain blood from their victims' throats, wrists, or other areas with superficial veins, but dig around in the bodies starting from the abdomen, tearing apart the organs using their tusks, and leaving behind horribly mutilated corpses, from which the heart is invariably missing.

Answer 3

Form follows Function

Modern vampires have a need to somewhat pass in society, and so slightly enlarged Canines (AKA Fangs) can be hidden enough to lure a suspecting victim into a darkened alleyway to exsanguinate them.

However, older Vampires had no such need and found that ambushing their victim from a concealed position was the much more effective hunting tactic. Often from a low, crouched position. The Tusks evolved to facilitate a fast, diagonally upward strike from below into one of the major blood vessels (Femoral artery, Jugular, even passing under the ribcage to hit one of the ones from the heart).

The effectiveness of this tactic and the need for speed and surprise means that these Vampires appear more muscular than their town/city counterparts - and are often mocked (but only behind their backs...) as being a little bit 'Quaint' and 'Simple'.

But make no mistake - though other vampires have evolved more subtle and deceptive means of hunting - the combination of speed, power and a devastating upward strike is not to be scoffed at.

Answer 4

The traditional view of a vampire is that of one sneaking up on their prey, and biting down on the neck or shoulder. This explains the normal orientation of fangs.

However, vampires are related to bats. And, as everyone knows, bats spend a lot of time hanging upside down.

So too with the "Boar" vampire. Clambering through the trees, our well-muscled sanguivore hangs down suddenly to surprise his prey from above — and, being upside-down, those tusks now point in the correct direction!

Hunger sated, the inverted predator sits up to pull himself back into the foliage, with an impressive display of core-strength.

Of course, in winter, many trees lose their leaves — and the exposed vampire may find himself spotted, and forced to flee an angry mob, across a frozen river.

Modern city-building, with tall buildings, wide roads, and a distinct paucity of suitable greenery, have fortunately led to the decline of this fearsome foe.

Answer 5

Convergent Evolution

Just as nature has evolved the crab frankly an unreasonable amount of times, so too did hemophagic bipeds develop from several unrelated evolutionary lines, in an environment where drinking blood was easier than other strategies for obtaining nutrition.

All of them consume blood more or less the same way, along the pattern of vampire bats: use its pointy bits to break its prey's skin, then lap up the blood with its tongue. The configuration of the pointy bits doesn't make a massive difference to survival fitness, allowing these species to coexist in the same niche.

Answer 6

When I was a teenager my parents had bought a fish and they were roasting it whole for lunch. When we ate it, realized that instead of a single fishbone, it had two, fused together at about the height of the gills and the tail.

You have been lucky to get a specimen with a genetic anomaly, too.

The poor chap should have been fanged, but due to some mishap his genes got garbled and he ended up with getting down what he should have got up.

The fact that he drowned in the lake while being chased proves that his anomaly made him weaker than the rest of his conspecifics.

Answer 7

If anything, those tusks are a disadvantage when it comes to drinking blood. So why was old Tusky so buff?

Those teeth drive the lady vampires wild, and sexual selection plays an important role in natural selection. The Boar is nothing more than a blood-sucking peacock.

Answer 8

The ethical dilemma of vampirism is- that its to infectious, means if its all about sunkisting humans- the diseasse spreads to fast. So the best way to surviv is to shift - to other animals. Wildboars are among the best prey for that, but those who do, develop a tast for it and are looked down upon by noble vampires.