What makes sharks such finely tuned biting machines? Their choppers, of course. In honour of Shark Month at the Discovery Channel, we’ve compiled a list of fun facts about shark teeth. Sink your teeth into these nuggets: The outside of…
The Planet of the Apes returns… for another root canal
A gorilla named Oscar Jonesey, or O.J., was knocked out and taken for treatment to the San Francisco Zoo hospital. Once at the hospital, the western lowland gorilla underwent a three-hour root canal procedure to save an abscessed tooth. The…
A root canal saved this tiger’s tooth from extinction
Tigers are just like humans: the older they are, the more likely they are to have issues with their teeth. In the wild, an older tiger with a dental emergency probably wouldn’t survive, since he wouldn’t be able to catch…
This patient cannot bear to get a root canal
In the wild, a polar bear with a broken or infected tooth would probably die. But Arktos, a 4-year-old male polar bear at Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland, was lucky. One day, the zookeepers noticed that the normally playful bear…
Tenderly treating a lion’s cracked tooth
A lion named Trouble lived up to his name when he cracked a tooth. The African lion, who lives in a wildlife park in Australia, was treated by a vet who normally treats much smaller cats. The veterinarian-turned-emergency-dentist removed half…
The little toothbrush that saved a space station
It was the case of the little toothbrush that could. Most toothbrushes have a simple, but worthwhile, purpose in life: to prevent tooth decay and gum disease by cleaning teeth. But one toothbrush had a loftier mission: to save the…
No, that’s not Chewbacca in the dentist’s chair
An orangutan who looks remarkably like Chewbacca can now chew without pain thanks to a root canal. Every day, as part of their daily health check, the zookeepers at the Auckland Zoo ask the orange primates to open their mouths.…
Did this polar bear have a killer toothache?
Here’s a scary consequence of not treating tooth pain: wild animals that prey on humans are sometimes found, post mortem, to be suffering from toothache. Because the afflicted animals have damaged or infected teeth, they are unable to hunt for…
Open wide: extracting a lion’s broken tooth
What’s an emergency dentist to do if a lion has a toothache? Reach in to the lion’s mouth and operate, of course. When Lockie, an 11-year-old male lion at the Darling Downs Zoo in Australia, broke a lower canine tooth,…
