VARIABLES, folks: when ferrets come from Europe to the U.S. (or visa versa) MANY things change often: there may be different diet, there may be different schedules (not joking since in the U.S. workdays according to studies and commutes are often longer and the human schedules affect the ferrets' ones), there may be different amounts of darkness provided, there may be different amounts of time outside, there may be difference to the water, there may be different viruses circulating (Remember that parts of Europe as well as Africa have had things like West Nile for a very protracted time but it is a recent addition to the U.S. and that works in reverse, too.), there may be different exposures to certain plastics, there may be different amounts of exercise, there may be different cleansers, etc. The list could go on till it fills an entire FML. I know that it seems easy to try to narrow things down to one difference but that is a fast way to mislead oneself. When considering one variable NEVER forget that others exist. There is nothing wrong with considering specific options, but do not confuse that with having cause to eliminate the others from consideration or to confuse it with having good cause to narrow the search when there isn't at this point. It is also ESSENTIAL to recall that there are NO studies showing that the numbers of certain things actually are lower in one location vs another. There are indications, but the RATES are lacking. Don;t forget that when studied, it was found that despite general "knowledge" that adrenal growths were rare in the Netherlands, the reality is that they were decently common once the symptoms were looked for, the vet care provided, and the surgeries done. Adrenal growths are complex in cause; NONE of the easy single cause hypotheses have panned out at this point, though it MAY (again there is a lack of numerical data) be that whole ferrets may be less likely to get adrenal growths. Will real stats support that feeling? No one knows yet. Do NOT forget that in the earlier years of having ferrets adrenal growths were thought to be uncommon and fur loss from other causes here in the U.S., too. 20 years ago they also had kibbled food (plain old cat foods then) and we had similar schedules and a number of other things were similar or the same. So, were there fewer then, or is that a misleading artifact of what was not yet known then? Hey, there may have been fewer, but no one knows. One thing that I know DOES appear to have changed in the U.S. -- it seems that the age of unset may be decreasing here in the U.S. It's not know if that is so but the evidence looks like it sure could be. If so, why? Well, perhaps people didn't look for it in younger ones, perhaps the fancies which have been so emphasized in breeding in the last decade have spread around some very susceptible genetic make-up, perhaps those who are newer to ferrets are less likely to provide some things those of us who have been around provide such as ture darkness or lots of exercise, etc. It is NOT a simple picture. Please, don't hurt yourself or your ferrets by treating it as one. Read about hypotheses, try to ones you chose to try. Remember what is only a hypothesis (including the true darkness hypothesis which we use here) rather than a fact to avoid future pain when some hypotheses inevitably do NOT pan out. >BTW, many of the great apes have canines and do eat meat. Case in point >the chimpanzees, they are vicious hunters that attack other chimp clans >and take the victims away and take much pleasure in devouring the >carcasses. Gorillas use their canines only for show (both highland and >lowland)... Actually, SOME of the apes (greater but not lesser) do eat meat but do so in small amounts. Like humans, the "common" ape (Pan troglodytes) is a very good hunter, though the meat is usually not shared and the hunting and eating of meat is usually by males (with exceptions, of course, including one family which handed down a cannibalism trait for a while in one study group). Never-the-less, most primates have very dagger-like canines and do not eat meat. The point and the illustration were in response to writer's statement that canine teeth indicate meat teething when in fact the indicative teeth of LARGE amounts of meat eating are the slicing edges of certain teeth like premolars and molars. It is not possible yet to generalize this to most female P. troglodytes, to bonobos (about whom) more and more is recently being learned, to gorillas 9as you pointed out), to orangutans (ditto about learning but that is in trouble badly from habitat loss so something may never be known), let alone to the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) to monkeys, or the prosimians. Human dentition tracks our history well. The incisor-form canines are reflective of high levels of frugivory (fruit eating) and to some extent that of young vegetation in earlier ancestors and predates even the 75% vegetarian - 25% flesh diet or gatherer-hunters (also called hunter-gatherers but some are veering away from the old term due to the Calorie percentages), some of the cusping and cingulae may be from insectivory (which still today is present in many societies though we tend to forget that in the U.S.). The grain grinding surfaces of teeth, frontal sexual attractants (such as enlarged breasts), padded rear ends, etc. are part of the Theroptihecus complex which reflect gramnivory (grain eating). You can tell a lot about where a species has been from its teeth, and the presence of canine teeth that are large and conical is more far, far commonly for defence and display in primates than for hunting. [Posted in FML issue 3941]