Lions, hippos, and even humans have fangs, the long, pointed tooth next to the front teeth. Those are actually the longest teeth in the human tooth. Among the low teeth, what is the role of this long pointed tooth?
Contrary to popular belief, fangs are not used for cutting flesh . The real reason is much more romantic than that.
Men today have fangs that are 10% longer than women. This difference is not unique to humans. So are their close relatives, the gorillas, even to a greater extent. The male canines are twice as long as the female’s. That’s because in gorilla society, males have to compete for the exclusive right to mate with all female monkeys, and the male with the longest, scarier fangs always wins. Over time, gorillas evolved to have longer and longer fangs. But in humans, we evolved in a different direction.
Human canines become shorter over time.
Human canines become shorter over time . Consider the canines of the first human genus – Ardipithecus ramidus or Australopithecus anamensis compared with modern humans.
In fact, our canines today are the shortest ever . The difference between the canines of men and women also became less obvious. That’s because unlike modern gorillas, which share our ancestors, men stopped using their teeth to fight a long time ago.
Currently, scientists are not sure why this happens, but one possibility is that our children are becoming less and less defenseless, so men have to spend more time taking care of children and less time. female conquest.
The end is that what remains in our mouths today are only traces from the behavior of fighting for advantage.
Today’s canines are not particularly useful. First, they’re not long enough to hold onto their prey the way lions do, and they’re not big enough to falter their enemies like hippos. Instead, the canines help us bite food .