Tusk, an exaggerated second incisor observed in the order ‘proboscidea’ can serve as an archive of physiological changes an animal undergoes over its life time. Information up to a daily scale can be procured from the incremental rings of these tusks. In this study, we propose to use this ‘natural recorder’ to get insights into diet and life history of the largest known terrestrial extant species- the elephant. The first part of the study would focus on studying diet composition over the life time of male individuals of the Bandipur- Nagarhole elephant population by tracking diets of these elephants over the past century up to a seasonal scale. The technique of stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis to be employed in the study, proposes to overcome the shortfalls and limitations of previous attempts in this direction. The second part aims at expanding our knowledge on a set of life history parameters of Asian elephants by employing a newly devised method of tracking stages of sexual development from growth profiles of tusk. In the past lack of any longitudinal study on wild Asian elephants has limited our knowledge of such parameters from captive elephants only.