10 Fun Dental Facts You Probably Didn’t Know!

The truth is, our teeth are amazing! Without them we wouldn’t be able to speak, eat, sing, or smile properly.

We’d like to celebrate our teeth by sharing some interesting dental facts you may not have known!

Here Are 10 Fun Dental Facts

1. If you’ve been using floss daily, by the end of the year the total length will be the perimeter of a baseball diamond! Is your floss going to make it to home plate?
2. Because birds lack teeth, many swallow stones or grits to aid in breaking up hard foods.
3. On average, women smile 62 times a day and men only eight times a day. Step it up, guys!
4. The average American spends 38.5 total days brushing their teeth in their lifetime.
5. Only 40 percent of young people age six to 19 have had cavities in their life. That’s down from 50 percent a decade ago!
6. In the middle ages, people thought that a dog’s tooth boiled in wine made an excellent mouth rinse to prevent tooth decay. Tasty!
7. The Egyptian Plover, also known as the crocodile bird, is famous for flying into crocodile mouths and cleaning their teeth.
8. Prior to the 1850s, ‘toothpastes’ were usually powders and contained soap and chalk.
9. An obscure law in Vermont states that it is illegal for women to wear false teeth without the written permission of their husband. Crazy!
10. Different animals have different amounts of teeth; armadillos have 104, pigs have 44, and humans have 32.

Another cool fact: the narwhal’s tusk Is actually a tooth!

Video Transcript

THE UNICORNS OF THE SEA! They’re a real thing and they make me so excited I might pee myself.

Hello hello friends Laci Green here for DNews. No new studies for you today, just a loving celebration of another neato animal in the sea: the narwhal. This is a rare whale that lives in Arctic waters with a long horn-like tusk that juts from the head — a tusk that can grow to be 10 FEET LONG! In addition to “the unicorn of the sea” the narwhal has also been referred to as “the corpse whale” because its spots kind of look like livor mortis – that patchy discoloration

that can happen after death. Although, as the narwhal ages, it gets more and more white. For centuries the narwhal has been famous not for its color but for that TUSK, which has been the source of all kind of folklore and legends. It may have been the original inspiration for the beloved fictional unicorn and people believed the tusk had magical healing powers. They believed it so strongly, in fact, that in the Middle Ages, the tusk of a narwhal was worth 10x its weight in gold! The high demand has posed a threat to the species actually, so….that’s not cool.

The source of the Narwhal’s fame, the tusk, is actually A TOOTH. Craziest tooth you’ll ever see my friends, and it’s the only tooth the Narwhal grows. Although, very rarely, a second tooth will grow. This tooth is grown by most males and only about 15% of the females….it grows directly through the whale’s upper lip and spirals to the left. Always to the left, possibly because it helps maintain a more durable structure. And it’s not super hard either, the tusk is bendy, it can bend about a foot in any direction.

What’s interesting about the narwhal’s tooth is that it’s anatomy is basically an inside-out version of a human tooth. While humans have the hard stuff on the outside protecting the soft sensory tissue on the inside, the narwhal has the hard stuff on the INSIDE with the sensitive layers on the outside. There’s a reason for this madness. The sensitive layer is covered with millions of tiny holes which act as a sophisticated sensor for the whale. These holes lead to the nerves which allow the narwhal to sense the water’s pressure,

temperature, how salty it is. Good things to have for survival, which is why it’s not clear why female narwhals are less likely to have one. The function of the tusk is still being studied because they’re pretty mysterious creatures that are hard for scientists to observe. The scientific consensus at this point is that the tusk is a sexual trait, kind of like a lion’s mane. It may be there to attract a mate, to display dominance, or perhaps even for communication. Narwhals do touch tusks…but it’s not in a violent way.

That would probably hurt anyway, given how many nerve endings cover the tusk. Can you imagine banging up a sensitive organ? NO THANKS. So folks, what’s your favorite animal in the sea? Tell me about it and maybe we’ll throw a little lovefest for them here on DNews. Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

Share this Article