Mr. singular is an artist, and he has carved me a beautiful teeny tiny perfect replica of the Taj Mahal using hippo ivory. Today we were watching a YouTube video of Fiona, the Cincinnati hippo, and I speculated that perhaps there could be a way to collect hippo baby teeth. I think I was joking - but do they have them and lose them? Their teeth are pretty spaced out, so they don’t have the crowding issue humans have. But do hippos - or any other animal, for that matter, have baby teeth that naturally fall out?
Most mammals are diphyodonts, having a set af “baby teeth” and then a set of adult teeth. Only a few are polyphyodonts, and some only regrow a few constantly – I believe rabbits and rodents only constantly regrow incisors.
Dogs do. I’ve had puppies that had permanent teeth coming in behind their baby teeth and also lost their baby teeth.
+1
Sheep and goats are born with a full set of “milk teeth” which are progressively replaced by permanent teeth in a regular timeline precise enough to be used to estimate the age of the animal.
Hippos aren’t born with teeth.
Am sure a quick google would provide details of the ages that they do erupt but an obligatory photos of baby hippos teething might suffice.
Looks like about 32 deciduous (baby) teeth and 38-42 adult teeth, sometimes not all baby teeth are lost. Most are molars or premolars, baby teeth appear to be 3 incisors per quadrant, 1 canine, 4 premolars.
IIRC, elephants get about six sets of molars over their lifespan, each lasting about ten years before they’re too worn down to be of use. In fact, one way that elephants die of old age is by running out of teeth.
Given that they’re replaced because they wear out, I’m not sure how much usable ivory you’d get out of a shed elephant tooth.
Besides, who’s going to go diving for used hippo teeth? I recall reading somewhere that hippos are responsible for more deaths in Africa than lions - the are very territorial about boats invading their personal space.
IIRC the point with rodents is not that they replace their teeth, but that their front teeth are constantly growing and they need to keep wearing them down.
They did talk about the hippos grinding their tusks on the show - by the way, the Cincinnati Zoo’s YouTube channel is a wonderful distraction. They’re so focused o their animal’s habitats that they probably could find the baby teeth in the pool. I’ll submit a question to them.
And yeah, I know I could’ve just googled this, but I’d rather enjoy the Dope conversation, especially now.