• Question: why do we have do we have teeth and tounges

    Asked by meganmcg to Angela, Gabriele, Karen, Maria, Shane on 15 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Angela Stevenson

      Angela Stevenson answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      The tongue and teeth evolved to facilitate eating on land and are very important initial steps of digestion. Teeth help breakdown food (grind it up) in preparation for passage down your throat, while the tongue is a strong muscle that helps position the food for grinding (by your teeth) and eventually pushes this mechanically digested food all the way to the back of your throat where it will make it’s way down to your stomach. Hope that helps answer your question! 🙂

    • Photo: Karen McCarthy

      Karen McCarthy answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Try and imagine not having teeth Megan – how much more difficult it would be to eat and enjoy food! The way we enjoy food is as much about the texture and “mouth-feel” of the food, as it is about the actual flavoured taste.

      Liquid pizza anyone?!

    • Photo: Shane Mc Guinness

      Shane Mc Guinness answered on 19 Nov 2013:

      Great question Megan.
      Though fish, whales and sharks have teeth too right Angela? Even some invertebrates have teeth. And marine mammals definitely have tongues as do turtles! So I would have to elaborate on this a little bit guys.

      First of all, a lot of the teeth in the animal kingdom have nothing to do with grinding food at all. Think of all those sharp teeth used to tear food up or catch prey? It’s only really those animals which eat plants that grind food, because plant food is not very similar to what some animals need so in order to digest it we need to work hard to break it up. If we as humans were to only eat steak, we wouldn’t need our grinding teeth at all, because cow meat is so much closer to the food we need!
      You can tell a lot about animals by the layout of their teeth or their “dentition”. Think about dinosaurs!? We definitely know that the T-Rex wasn’t a vegetarian don’t we! And when you look at cow teeth, well you know she doesn’t run around catching and eating sheep all day! (that would be hilarious…..! 🙂 )

      Yep we need tongues to push food down our throats. Did you know that the tongue is the only muscle in the body which is not connected at both ends!?

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