On 3/11/2014 9:50 AM, Ruben Safir wrote:
On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 10:57:52AM -0400, Matt Martyniuk wrote:But all if those are secondarily flightless, so their lack if teeth would not have a bearing on the role of teeth in flight.The reason for losing teeth might well just be that tyeeth are expensive and a point of major failure. If they are not needed, getting rid of them makes perfect sense. Why are humans losing their teeth in human evolution?
Third molars? Also the human jaw is getting smaller. Several reasons probably. Came across this a long time ago, there's probably more current thinking on it tho - from 2005:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7035-human-dental-chaos-linked-to-evolution-of-cooking.htmlCrooked and disordered teeth may be the result of people having evolved to eat relatively mushy cooked food, suggests new research.
The disarray may have developed because evolutionary pressures affecting the size and shape of both the front teeth and jaw conflict with those influencing the back teeth. This means that there is often not enough space in the human jaw to accommodate all our teeth.
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