Putting together directions of Bob's two posts yesterday: teeth can also
point to diet.  Let's look at the teeth of humans (omnivores) compared to
those of ferrets (obligate carnivores).  The ones in the very front are the
incisors.  Now our's are spatulate (shaped like a spatula) and perfect for
easy slicing being long and thin-- ideal teeth for slicing into things like
fruits and delivering that food to the mouth.  Ferrets', on the other hand,
are thin and short -- peg-like; this shape is perfect for grooming.  Next
come the canines.  In humans our's have become incisorform (taking on the
shape of the incisors) and help in the same sorts of functions, though you
will find a few folks (mostly male) with long ones in relation to other
humans they tend to be quite wimpy compared to those of many other species.
(Of course, people with canine envy can get fake ones as caps which are
longer.) Take a look at those of the ferrets.  Heck, you don't even need to
open their mouths.  The blasted things hang right out in the breeze.  These
are marvelous ancestral teeth for displaying, for defence, and fighting,
for hunting, etc.  Now we move on to the two types of cheek teeth: the
premolars (called bicuspids by your dentists) and molars.  In us they are
kind of a blended tooth -- nicely spiked for insectivorous aspects of the
diet (and insects do play a part in many human diets around the globe even
now) but not bad at things like slicing and mashing; our molars, on the
other hand, are beautifully wide grinding surfaces with low cusps -- just
perfectly suited to grinding down grains and seeds (gramnivory).  The
cheek teeth in ferrets have high slicing areas not seen in our's and lack
the ideal grinding areas.  In fact, some are so specialized for slicing
meat, and other tough animal tissues that they have a special name: the
carnassials.  So, you can look at tooth shapes are tell the diet of
animals.  The ferrets obviously have teeth which just blare out that
animals are exactly what they evolved to eat, whereas our's point to
variety (spice of life).
 
Now I think I'd better go and try to wake up.  Not very good at that this
morning for some reason -- oh, yeah, that would be because yesterday I had
to unload and move furniture, rescue items, clean, and then re-arrange half
the bedroom, a project which began when 3 and 1/2 pound Scooter decided to
try climbing, dumped a ton of things behind the cases, and then pushed the
stereo off the front -- barely missing Warp as it landed 3 feet below with
a thud ...
[Posted in FML issue 2887]