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Why don’t birds have teeth?
YOU JUST NEED TO GLANCE AT A 150-million-year-old fossilised Archaeopteryx to see that birds’ ancestors were not toothless. And yet avian dentition is now as rare as proverbial hens’ teeth. So what exactly happened between then and now?
Biologists aren’t quite sure. What they do know is that, about 100 million years ago, genetic mutations emerged that prevent tooth development by blocking enamel and dentine production. These can be reactivated artificially to induce chicken embryos to produce peg-like reptilian teeth.
More mysterious is why they lost them. One possibility is that replacing teeth with a horny beak reduces the payload, making flight more efficient.
Beaks are certainly highly versatile tools that can be wielded to sip nectar from flowers, tear flesh from bones, crack nuts, filter food from water and pluck insects from the air. Compared to teeth, though, they
