A Dinosaur’s Toothache

The toothache that you felt last year, last month, or just this morning is something that has been experienced since man first walked the earth. That has been long accepted as the truth.

However, new evidence is pointing to the fact that it was not man that experienced the first dental pain, but rather the prehistoric creatures that once wandered the earth.

Studies of dinosaur skeletons have discovered new evidence of bone damage to the jaw and teeth caused by serious dental infections. These findings point to the first toothache existing in a living creature more than two million years earlier than what was once thought.

With the assistance of CT scans (a series of x-rays taken at different angles to produce a cross-sectional view of the body), Dr. Robert Reisz and his team documented clear and precise proof of what was once dental infection, in a 275 million year old fossil.

Earlier findings had shown that many dinosaur species originally had jaws with teeth only loosely attached. These teeth could become easily dislodged, but were consistently replaced with new ones.

However, as the evolution of the species progressed, this pattern changed, likely as a means to make it easier for the reptiles to consume other animals. The teeth became better affixed to the jaw and new teeth were not as common. Thus, the chances of infection increased.

This evidence coincides with the fact that human beings are much more likely to suffer dental infection than many other animal species, as we only have two sets of teeth to last us a lifetime.

For more information on this study and the findings, continue reading here.