Wild dogs
I haven’t been to the dentist in almost 2 years and probably my dentist also had given up on me as I have stopped getting messages for general check up visits. However, there is always this nagging thought that I should probably get my teeth checked before I am hit by a nasty toothache. When I was thinking about this, I started wondering how wild animals take care of their teeth. And my research showed that they have some amazing and cool ways of keeping their clean without hassling themselves with boring brush your teeth routine or visiting dentists.
Even though it is speculated that one of the main reasons why animals in the wild don’t face major dental problems is because of their diet. Wild animals don’t eat sugary foods like we humans do nor do majority of animals live long enough to see old age related dental diseases/pains. But, a research group conducted a study on the skulls of 29 adult wild dogs which showed that they too suffered from dental problems similar to pet dogs indicating that natural diet might not have given them any added advantage compared to their domesticated cousins. What might be interesting to note is that even though diet may not play a big role in keeping dental diseases at bay, the rate of occurrences were found to be far less in wild animals as compared to the ones bred in captivity based on the survey done on thousands of animals.
With the exception of bears it is very uncommon to find dental cavities in wild animals. And researchers from Canadian Geographic found the clue to this phenomenon by studying fossils of 3.5 million years old bears which also had cavities like present day bears. Their study indicated that our modern day bears learnt to adapt to cold climates by eating food rich in sugar. Bears in some places eat plenty of berries during autumn to build up fat for hibernation during winters. Eating large quantities of fruits contributes to cavities in them.
Brown bear
One of the strategies used by animals in the wild to keep dental diseases under control is teeth replacement. Researchers have found that crocodiles don’t worry about keeping their teeth free of cavities as they replace teeth quite often during their lifetime. The easy way of replacing is down to the fact that they have thin enamels. They can replace teeth up to 40 times in their lifetime and most crocodiles don’t survive long enough to experience their 40th set of new teeth.
Shark
Sharks also have endless supply of teeth ranging from 5 to 7 rows of teeth which push out the old set of teeth. This continuous regeneration can happen as often as once every 9 days to 28 days depending on the shark species. In fact, this power of teeth regeneration has also been used to help humans. A dental clinic in London implanted teeth called Scheider Shark Tooth Implants into humans which were extracted from live sharks. Humans have similar genes for teeth as sharks and alligators however, these genes are turned off once humans get their adult teeth, while sharks and alligators genes don’t have a similar fate when these animals reach adulthood.
Shark teeth
Even Though, having a regenerative tooth implant seems like a cool idea, I am not completely sure if I’ll ever take that route. For now at least I’ll continue to brush my teeth and maintain dental hygiene just to avoid any nasty surprises;)
