Chapter 4: Teeth Everywhere

The first thing I thought to myself while I was reading the chapter was, "Evolution of teeth?!" I had not expected to read about the teeth and the connections that they will reveal. The most interesting part of this chapter were the tritheledonts. Part reptile, part mammal??? When I saw the picture of the tritheledont, I knew exactly what Shubin meant. The teeth seemed very interesting, like half of our incisor teeth and half of our molar teeth. I realized these little creatures were the starting of how the mammals got their kind of teeth. In addition, the evolution of the ostracoderms caught my attention. It amazed me how their whole head was bone and there were tiny teeth connected on to them. I wondered how hard it would be to swim with bony head and a fleshy body. I learned how the connection we have with other animals is how we all have features of our body that all interact with skin. During evolution, birds went with feathers, others went with hair. We as humans developed many.