Aim: To find out the relationships of animals dentitions and their diets.
Background Research: Teeth are found in mouths of many mammals and vertebrates. They are mainly used to tear, scrape, milk, and chew food. Some mammals also use teeth to hunt or defend itself. Teeth are used by paleontologists to identify species and the species diet. Sometimes, plant is hard to chew so herbivores have many molars for chewing. Carnivores need canines to kill and tear meat. There are 4 types of teeth: Incisors, Canine teeth, premolars and molars. Some organisms have more of one then the other. The pattern they have or the amount of teeth they have of each kind is their dental formula. The dentition can be expressed as a dental formula. Teeth are numbered starting at 1 in each group, except the premolars which end at 4. This means that the carnassials are always the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar. Thus the human teeth are I1, I2, C1, P3, P4, M1, M2, and M3.
Materials: Human teeth Various skulls apple/lettuce mirror
Procedure:
A. Examine your teeth.
B. Look at your incisors, canines, premolars and Molars. How many do you have?
C. Shut your mouth and chew a bit and consider how they fit together.
D. Count animal dentition.
E. Relate animal dentition to diet
Questions and Analysis:
Q-1) All together how many teeth are in your mouth?
All together I have 24 teeth altogether. Adults have 28 or 32 teeth.
Q-2) How many incisors are there, starting from the midline of your upper jaw, counting to the left? Lower jaw?
There are 2 incisors in the top jaw and 2 on the bottom. There are 1 central incisors on the top and one lateral incisors on the top. It is the same for the bottom.
Q-3) How do you use these teeth when you eat? (Hint: consider how you use them eating different foods such as an apple ,a chicken leg, or a spear of broccoli.)
Incisors are the teeth that you use for cutting into food or a object. These are slim and they bite into food....