Ask yourself, or even ask your dentist in Quezon City, “what’s the first thing you think of when you say teeth?” I’d bet that your answer would be “smile”. OK, so what’s the second thing that you can think of? Eating. Of course it’s eating. I mean, what else do you do with your teeth?
Eating is simple. You get food, put it in your mouth, chew
with your teeth, enjoy (experience may vary) and then swallow. You’d think
that, at least for animals, it would be that simple and that they’d eat in the
typical way we know but really, there are a lot of things that would be
surprised about with their habits. Sink your teeth into some of them.
Birds eat Birds
This doesn’t sound as weird if you’re familiar as to what
birds of prey, like hawks, falcons, and eagles like. It would sound weird if we
told you that pelicans eat pigeons. It’s what they do when there’s a shortage
of fish in their vicinity.
Another bird that has an unusual eating habit is the skua.
It scares seagulls by swooping on at them and until they vomit out of fear and
exhaustion. That’s if they gulls are lucky—if they haven’t anything to vomit,
after they get exhausted, skuas proceed to just straight up eating their tired
bodies. Oh, and they eat baby penguins, too.
Cows eat Birds
(Sometimes)
Cows, with their molar filled mouth, are the last animals
you’d expect to need to eat birds but they do, and so do goats, deer, and
sheep! It’s because these “herbivores” need calcium and other minerals that
their current diet or environment are not making available to them—for example,
stags eat tiny wild birds because they need to develop their antlers, and so
on.
Humans aren’t the
Only Animals to Wash Food
Humans have this distinctive acuity for hygiene that not
everyone in the animal kingdom has. They take shower, brush their teeth, and
eat food only after it’s been washed clean. Surprisingly, the Japanese macaque
does too!
Used to be, macaques just brushed off any soil that would be
on the root crops they were to eat but one of them, whom the researchers
affectionately named Imo, washed hers by the sea and all the others
followed suit, creating a habit that has prevailed until today.
Humans Eat Vomit
What? Ew! How gross is it to even think about eating vomit.
The thing is, however, you could most likely be among these vomit eating
people. Honey is a sweet name for bee vomit. That’s basically it, we are a
species that enjoy the vomit of small flying insects. Technically, this entry
isn’t as weird for you as it is for the bees who might be wondering why others
would want to steal they’re regurgitated pollen that might
even be great for oral health.
Zoopharmacognosy
Maybe one of the weirdest and most amazing thing I’ve heard
in a while is this scientific jargon. It basically means the food habit of
animals specifically for the purpose of treating illness and recovering from
injuries. That’s right: there are animals that have turned nature into their
own free-for-all pharmacy.
Dogs would sometimes eat grass so they can induce vomiting
after eating something that could potentially be poisonous. Even eating bone,
apart from being a method of sustenance, is also a way for dogs to keep their
teeth sharp and clean.
This is such a wonderfully weird world we live in that even
animals, instead of visiting the same dentist in Quezon City that you do, will
find a way to care for their teeth, or wash food or season it with salty sea
water. But no matter how weird it is to think that bee vomit is something we
enjoy as humans, constant brushing and regular trips to the dentist is still
necessary.
Brought to you by: http://dentalworld.com.ph/
Brought to you by: http://dentalworld.com.ph/
