Horse teeth refers to the dentition of equine species, including horses and donkeys. Equines are both heterodontous and diphyodontous, which means that they have teeth in more than one shape (there are up to five shapes of tooth in a horse's mouth), and have two successive sets of teeth, the deciduous ("baby teeth") and permanent sets.
As grazing animals, good dentition is essential to survival, and continued grazing creates specific patterns of wear, which can be used along with patterns of eruption to estimate the age of the horse.
Read more about Horse Teeth: Types of Teeth, Tooth Growth, Tooth Wear, Continuous Eruption and Loss, The Teeth and The Bit, Dental Problems, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words horse and/or teeth:
“One key, one solution to the mysteries of the human condition, one solution to the old knots of fate, freedom, and foreknowledge, exists, the propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and public nature, as the equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of the other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“An Indian’s teeth are strong, and I noticed that he used his often where we should have used a hand. They amounted to a third hand.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)