Famous for their smile, there’s a lot to admire in a dolphin’s mouth. Here are some fun facts about dolphins’ teeth.
Today, April 14th, is World Dolphin Day. Whether it’s the Irrawaddy Dolphin that lives in the fresh water of rivers in Asia, or the familiar Common Bottlenose Dolphin, one thing they seem to have in common is that upward turn to their mouths. The only dolphin that doesn’t seem to smile is the Orca (the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family). Perhaps that’s why it was dubbed the killer whale. So is it their smile that makes dolphins our most loved sea creature? They certainly behave in a way that makes us smile.
10 fun facts about dolphins’ teeth
- Dolphin usually have all their teeth by the time they are five month’s old.
- Dolphins have the same set of teeth for life.
- If a dolphin loses a tooth, it can’t replace it.
- As a dolphin grows, its teeth grow too. Just as we can tell the age of a tree when it’s cut down, scientists can tell how long a dolphin lived by dissecting a tooth and counting the growth rings.
- There are over forty dolphin species, and they don’t all have the same number of teeth.
- The dolphin with the fewest number of teeth is the Risso Dolphin. If it’s lucky it may have 14 teeth, some only have four.
- The dolphin with the most teeth is the Long-beaked Common Dolphin. It can have as many as 240 teeth. That’s quite a mouth full!
- They don’t chew their food! They use their teeth for grabbing and holding onto prey before swallowing it whole.
- A dolphins teeth are typically conical and pointed. They are a regular size and shape, unlike ours. While many animals have teeth for biting or grinding, a dolphin’s teeth are just designed for grabbing slippery fish and making sure they don’t get away.
- They may use their teeth defensively, and observers have seen the Boto dolphin (‘pink’ Amazon river dolphin) holding sticks between their teeth.
- A dolphin may rake its teeth across the skin of another dolphin to show its authority in the pod. That’s why you may see whitish scars like stripes on a dolphin’s skin.
- The teeth and jaw play an important role to help dolphin echo-locate by absorbing returning information which is relayed to the inner ear and on to the brain for quick decision making. It’s an impressive and complicated system.
And did you know?
The most disappointing fact about a dolphin’s mouth is: They can’t actually smile.
We think of dolphins as clever, sensitive mammals, so it’s easy to attribute human qualities to them. But they don’t have facial muscles so they can’t smile. The characteristic shape of their mouth is part of their hydrodynamic adaptation.
Why does a dentist for humans have an article about dolphins?
Well, we’d like parents to supervise their children’s tooth-brushing for two minutes twice a day. We have a few articles with fun-facts about animals’ teeth for you to share with your children while they’re brushing.
We believe good preventive care means children can keep their healthy teeth for life.