Dental Trivia!

Dental Crowns and Dental Bridges
  1. Sharks shed teeth throughout their life (weekly) but their teeth are in rows and are replaced quickly. Some may even be replaced within 24 hours. It is estimated that sharks use approximately 34,000 teeth in their lifetime.
  2. The hardest substance in the human body is tooth enamel. Tooth enamel is about 2.5 mm thick. It is like an outer shield that helps protect the organic part of the tooth.
  3. Tooth enamel mainly consists of 2 minerals: Apatite and Fluorite. Apatite is composed of Calcium Phosphate and Fluorite is composed of Calcium Fluorite. Calcium is mostly white in color so our teeth appear white. Enamel is translucent so the color is also influenced by the color of your dentin, which is typically more yellow.
  4. Ideally teeth would have been formed from Corundum, which is Aluminum Oxide. Corundum is extremely acid resistant and extremely hard. Teeth would be cavity free, but instead of having white enamel, our normal tooth color could have been red or blue.
  5. Humans have two sets of teeth: 20 deciduous teeth and 32 permanent teeth. We have incisors, canines, premolars, and molars.
  6. Giraffes also have 32 teeth. Dogs have 42 teeth and Cats have 30 teeth.
  7. Instead of wood, George Washington had a denture made from human teeth and carved hippopotamus ivory.
  8. Elephant tusks are actually incisor teeth. Elephants have 24 molars. Each molar weighs 6-10 pounds each. The slide forward on plates and are replaced 6 times during their life. After their last molars wear out, they die.
  9. Queen Elizabeth 1 reportedly had black and rotten front teeth due to an excessively sugary diet.
  10. Manatees do not have tusks or incisors or canines, but have 24 molars, called “marching molars”. As their front molars wear down, new ones form at the back of their mouths, and all of their teeth slide forward on plates. This happens throughout their lives. If only we had teeth like Manatees.
  11. Narwhal whales have 2 tusks which are canines. Normally only one grows, up to 10 feet long. The do not have enamel on them, but are used for sensory purposes, such as detecting changes in water salinity.
  12. After the Battle of Waterloo, barrels of teeth were taken back to England. Teeth were extracted form dead young soldiers so that they could be used in making dentures.
  13. Bottlenose Dolphins have 80-100 teeth which are only used for defense. They swallow their food whole. Their age can be determined by annual rings of minerals that form on their teeth.
  14. Crocodiles let Egyptian Plover birds sit in their mouth and clean their teeth. They do not eat them.
  15. Dogs and cats get cavities from eating human food, so they need to have their teeth brushed. Bears get cavities from too much honey.
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