Chapter 4: Teeth Everywhere

Wow, I accidentally closed this...and I had just finished writing my thoughts on the chapter. So I had to type it up again...
Well, I thought this chapter would be interesting, because it was about teeth (the title being the obvious indicator). I just thought teeth were used to help us eat and talk, so I wanted to know what else made them beneficial. This quote first stood out to me, "Also, their teeth are replaced in a decidedly reptilian way: new teeth pop in and out throughout the animals' lives" (62). When I read the sentence above it, I couldn't help but feel envious that these old reptiles didn't have to lose teeth. But then I thought that maybe that could have been the problem, considering the fact that their teeth didn't fit very well together.
When I got to page 71 and 72, I couldn't help but think that if it wasn't for the beauty contest, they wouldn't have found the bones in the basalt cliffs, because they wouldn't have been trapped there in the first place. But it's great to know that they were able to find something somewhere unexpectedly.
And of course, there would be the explanation in the last few pages to tie everything together. Who knew that hair (really soft and sometimes fragile) could be so similar to teeth (hard and durable) in the way they develop? It also made me wonder momentarily: It usually hurts to lose teeth (but that isn't always true, ex. losing baby teeth) and hair (except when losing it naturally. If pulled, it hurts), so for birds, that pattern should hold true as well. The pattern being: There is no pain to losing the feathers naturally, just if the feathers are pulled out forcefully. Everything is connected, even moreso than just the way they develop. I would've never considered all of these similarities.