Sir, I wish to applaud your innovative 'Wildlife Series' cover illustrations in Volume 213 of the British Dental Journal. Since the dropping of comparative odontology from the dental curriculum in most, if not all dental schools, dentists are woefully ignorant of the astonishing variety of dentitions that exist in the animal kingdom. The adaptation of teeth to various diets makes a fascinating study of the diversity of dentitions that range from the shark's polyphyodont (multiple sets) to the mammalian diphyodont (two sets) of teeth. The evolution of simple cone homodont (single cusp) to heterodont (multiple cusp) teeth determines the development of the complex human dentition, and ought to underlie dentists' knowledge of the organs upon which their profession is based. I trust that you will feature such widely diverse dentitions as those of dinosaurs, reptiles, fish, rodents, tusks of walruses, narwhals and elephants to illustrate how diverse the organs of predation, capture, ingestion, mastication, speech, aggression, comeliness and even sensory input are manifest in the huge range of odontological oddities.

I enclose a photo showing the outline of a narwhal male spiral tusk (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Left side canine spiral tusk protruding from a male narwhal (Monodon monocerus) skull.
figure 1

The female lacks a tusk, representing the most extreme dental sexual dimorphism. Scale rule is 45 cm long. Photo courtesy of the University of Alberta Dental Museum

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