Why Do We Have Baby Teeth?
What's up with baby teeth? Do other animals have them, and what are they good for -- other than squeezing money out of the tooth fairy? We have the answers!
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Missing teeth. Not so cute in lead singer of the Pogues, but pretty dang cute on a smiling toddler. But why do humans have baby teeth, and why do we lose them? It is weird, it is a weird, weird thing Humans, and most mammals, are diphyodonts, meaning we grow two sets of teeth in our lifetimes. A permanent set of adult teeth and a deciduous set of baby teeth. Deciduous teeth are smaller and fewer in number, because a toddler's jaws are tiny, and could never fit in a full set of thirty-two adult teeth because that would be super horrible and terrifying, and no one would get anywhere near them. So instead we begin life with twenty smaller teeth, which start erupting out of our gums when we're about to turn six months old, and are fully in by the time we're two-and-a-half. Just like ou...
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Missing teeth. Not so cute in lead singer of the Pogues, but pretty dang cute on a smiling toddler. But why do humans have baby teeth, and why do we lose them? It is weird, it is a weird, weird thing Humans, and most mammals, are diphyodonts, meaning we grow two sets of teeth in our lifetimes. A permanent set of adult teeth and a deciduous set of baby teeth. Deciduous teeth are smaller and fewer in number, because a toddler's jaws are tiny, and could never fit in a full set of thirty-two adult teeth because that would be super horrible and terrifying, and no one would get anywhere near them. So instead we begin life with twenty smaller teeth, which start erupting out of our gums when we're about to turn six months old, and are fully in by the time we're two-and-a-half. Just like ou...
