lpetrich
Contributor
Dentures For Toothless 80 Year Old Elephant
The Nevada Daily Mail - Google News Archive Search
Ailing elephant fitted with life-saving dentures - YouTube
VOICER: Elephant has custom made dentures fitted - YouTube
Elephants have very unusual teeth. Their tusks are upper second molars, though some of the older extinct ones also had lower-jaw tusks. They also have 3 premolars and 3 molars per jaw side on both jaws, but they grow in an unusual fashion. Elephants have only one set of back teeth at a time, and they replace each set with a new set over their lives. Each new set grows from the back, not beneath the existing set.
When the animals run out of back teeth, they cannot chew very well, and they soon die. Some elephants may look for very chewy food, like what is found in water. That may explain elephant graveyards -- lots of elephants going to places with very chewy food, but soon dying.
But I can't find any more about elephant dentures than this.
The Nevada Daily Mail - Google News Archive Search
Ailing elephant fitted with life-saving dentures - YouTube
VOICER: Elephant has custom made dentures fitted - YouTube
Elephants have very unusual teeth. Their tusks are upper second molars, though some of the older extinct ones also had lower-jaw tusks. They also have 3 premolars and 3 molars per jaw side on both jaws, but they grow in an unusual fashion. Elephants have only one set of back teeth at a time, and they replace each set with a new set over their lives. Each new set grows from the back, not beneath the existing set.
When the animals run out of back teeth, they cannot chew very well, and they soon die. Some elephants may look for very chewy food, like what is found in water. That may explain elephant graveyards -- lots of elephants going to places with very chewy food, but soon dying.
But I can't find any more about elephant dentures than this.