Human teeth

[GutZ]

I was wondering about the canine or fangs that humans have (The teeth right before you hit the molars). Or is that just random people. Mine are slightly pointed, so naturally I was wondering if that came from ape ancestry? and how far back can we trace back our evolution, I don't see a reason for apes to have fangs, but thats just me.

[ecoli]

My girlfriend's dad had canine's so pointy that he had to get them filed down - he was a real vampire.

 

Everybody is different in that regard.

[GutZ]

So does that mean some people don't have them at all? People have different noises as well, but never no nose at all.

 

I was wonder if that was a human development, but that because I am under the assumption that the primates were mostly herbovores.

 

There has to be some form of logicial descension that explains everything, I don't know why suddenly teeth sparked my interest, kind of odd.

 

I guess there isn't much that doesn't interest me.

[SkepticLance]

Go to a zoology museum. Take a look at a chimpanzee skull. The canines are big. Why? Because chimps are hunters, and kill animals, and eat their meat.

 

Humans are also hunters. Guess what? Our canines are small - indeed, puny. Why? Best guess is that we have ben using fire and cooking for long enough to affect our evolution. Big canines are not needed when food is prepared by cooking.

[GutZ]

Yeah thats exactly what I've been looking for, I've never seen chimps protrayed as hunters. It would be interesting to know where the primate evolved from.

[Mokele]

Go to a zoology museum. Take a look at a chimpanzee skull. The canines are big. Why? Because chimps are hunters, and kill animals, and eat their meat.

 

Actually, that's not strictly true; gorillas are almost entirely vegetarian, yet have *huge* canines.

 

In apes, canines have been taken over as a secondary sexual characteristic. In situations where the sexual competition between males is intense and high-payoff (such as a gorilla's harem), you see much more sexual dimorphism, and the canines are an aspect of this. Apes with big canines have harem-based structures where one male has exclusive control of all females, those with moderate canines live like chimps, where the alpha still has it best, but subordinates still have a chance. From this, we can infer that humans have been at least roughly monogamous for quite a while.

 

Part of me wonders if differences in human canine length might have to do with testosterone levels during childhood or even pre-natally.

 

Mokele

[spuriousmonkey]

Part of me wonders if differences in human canine length might have to do with testosterone levels during childhood or even pre-natally.

 

 

In human teeth the crown is formed first and then the root during development. Once your done with your crown you can't make it any longer (unless under special circumstances) If you want a long canine there are basically two solutions.

 

1. You grow a long crown early during development and a normal root.

 

2. You grow a short crown early during development and make a long root.

 

 

Option number 2 you can see in for instance the tusks of the elephant. Only the tip is covered with enamel (=crown). The rest is dentin and cementum, which translates into root.

 

Moreover the tusk is a special tooth since it actually grows forever.

 

What happens in gorillas?

 

I'm not sure, but I am guessing no.1. (educated guess). I've never heard reports that the visible part of the canines of gorillas are subdivided in a crown and root domain. It would be easy to see.

[Mokele]

Interesting, I never knew the developmental basis for such things. I suspect you're right that gorillas use strategy number 1, as the skulls I've seen all have uniformly colored teeth until the portion in the socket.

 

Mokele

[AzurePhoenix]

I've never seen chimps protrayed as hunters.

I'm rather surrpised by this. They're prolific hunters, preying on monkeys, cannibalizing chimps, attacking humans and eating our babies.

[Hegemony]

Yeah thats exactly what I've been looking for, I've never seen chimps protrayed as hunters. It would be interesting to know where the primate evolved from.

 

I'm sure that's because you're used to seeing the baby chimps that hang out on people's heads and with michael jackson. When they grow up they get a little hard to handle... you know, hormones and such.

[GutZ]

I'm rather surrpised by this. They're prolific hunters, preying on monkeys, cannibalizing chimps, attacking humans and eating our babies.

 

Maybe I watched too much Tarzan. Don't ask I had a weird childhood.

 

p.s.

 

Cheetah was a chimp right?