Words for Teeth and Mammals and Others

We still have many words to explain or "clean up" from the previous essay. Among these are mala, mungala, antechinus, dunnarts, Kowari. Then, we can introduce some characteristics of some mammals, such as the words homodont, diphyodont and deciduous, with respect to their teeth; unguligrade, plantigrade, digitigrade, with respect to their movement; and, returning to teeth, zalambdodont, bilamdodont, lophodont, bunodont or selenodont. Then, we will find that we need to say something about the babyrousa (spelled about four different ways), the concept of aposematic signals, the presence of the diastema in the mouth and then hosts of other animals. We may never get through the tasks. Pity, isn't it?

More Marsupials

Taxonomists divide the marsupials (from the Latin, meaning "pouch") into American and Austrialian marsupials, with one one-member order, the Microbiotheria, in the middle. The only member of this order is the Monito del Monte ("little mountain monkey"), a semi-arboreal South American marsupial. He is also known as the colocolo or chimaihuen, though I am sure that the latter two terms are in no English-language dictionary. Even though this little guy, who only weighs a few ounces, may be different from all his neighbors, it seems rather unfair to give him a whole order, when the 2,000+ species of rodents also only occupy one order: the Rodentia. But that is the way of the world.

The mala or Rufous Hare-wallaby (you see, its parents were liberated, since it has a hyphenated last name), one of the smaller macropods, is from the Diprodontia Order and the Macropodidae ("big-foot") family. Its fur is a rich sandy buff coloration, with the length increasing as it inches toward the back. The average weight is just under four pounds for these threatened creatures. Before we leave the word mala, however, we should pause to recognize its other meaning: a set of prayer beads popular in Tibet and India, usually made with 108 beads, used similarly to rosary beads among Catholics: as a memory aid while repeating a mantra or the various names of a deity. But vocabulary can really get away from us, can't it, because this article says that when the mala beads exceed 108, the 109th is called the sumeru, stupa or guru bead. Before you know it, friends, we really have to learn Sanskrit, or whatever language has bequeathed to us one of its words. We are the most fortunate of people, to be able to borrow the treasures of other cultures as we build our own lives. But, back to the marsupials.

The OED has a listing for the mulgara: "a rat-sized carnivorous marsupial with a pointed snout...(family Dasyuridae)." Hence it is from the Dasyuromorphia Order. Likewise the Kowari is a Dasyurid. The antechinus is described by one website as a "very bold, highly arboreal marsupial" which feeds mostly on insects. It has a "curiously flattened head" which allows it to hunt in the tightest of spots. But the vocabulary seems almost endless, as are the animals. One more from the family Dasyuridae is the phascogale, which is defined as a "genus of small, mouselike, insectivorous Austrialian marsupials." In 2001 the Guardian could say that the "brush-tailed bettong and the bilby have left the territory (South Australia) and the next to go could be the Antipodean equivalent of the tree shrew, the phascogale." The Greek words making up phascogale means "pouch" (phaskolos) and "weasel" (gale). There really is little other way to become introduced to these wonderful creatures than with pictures; the web is awash in them. Don't forget the dunnarts, also from the Dasyuromorphia Order, even though they make it into no dictionary.

Teeth and Movement

Well, before we get to the teeth of this essay, I wanted to mention a very useful concept in the study of mammals: aposematic signals. This phrase is applied to colors, markings, or other attributes, such as the smell of a skunk, which serve to warn and scare off potential attackers. Just like an apotropaic necklace or action has the power to avert evil or bad luck (apotrepein is the Greek verb for "turn away"), so an aposematic is a "sign" (semeion) that drives away (apo). For example, the poison frog in the family Dendrobatidae (Class is Amphibia rather than Mammalia) use the bright colors on their bodies to "advertise" their toxicity. I took a "break" to study these creatures, and I am now fascinated by them. Do you realize that these poison frogs, found in South and Central America (approx. 220 species), are generally not toxic to animals and humans, but at least one of them produces the potent neurotoxin batrachotoxin, so that if you touched your tongue to the back of a batrachotoxin-laden poison frog, you would die. Why anyone would go around on their hands and knees in the Amazon forests with tongue out trying to touch frogs, however, is quite beyond me.

Nevertheless, these multicolored creatures (one species is called the "blue jeans" frog because its legs are the color of Levis blue jeans) often have loads of toxins on the skin, toxins derived from eating a steady diet of ants, mites and beetles. The frogs have a capacity to absorb the poison passed on by these arthropods and store them in skin glands. What a useful mental picture. Maybe in our prayers to God we should pray to become sorts of poison frogs, not that we store up the toxicity to use on others, but that we are able to absorb all kinds of poison from others without it killing us. But then, you do have the problem of what happens with the poison that we ingest. Can we just "sweat" it off?

I think you catch the idea of what an aposematic signal is. Do humans have such "signals?" Sure we do. When someone at the office doesn't want to be "messed" with, they do or wear certain things. A person working out with headphones is giving you a "warning" not to "mess" with them. A gun slung on the waist, a club dangling from a belt, even vocabulary that is thrown out to keep people "at bay"--all of these are human aposematic signals. I don't know if there is an opposite word, a word for "signals" that entice, but if there isn't there sure ought to be such a term. We spend as much time trying to lure others as we do in repelling them.

Back to teeth. One of the distinguishing marks of mammals is the way our teeth are formed and the number of teeth in the jaw. I have started to quiz my dental assitants each time I go to the dentist about various terms for teeth; in general they don't seem to have the same interest in "teeth terms" as I do. So, I have to go to the books. What you learn when you study mammals is that we have four types of teeth. From center to back they are incisors (2 in humans), canine (1), premolars (2) and molars (3, the last one being a wisdom). Multiply by four and presto, you have 32 teeth. An interesting feature of many mammals, however, is the presence of a disatema or gap in the lower jaw between the canine and the premolars. Actually the term diastema can refer to any gap in teeth, but normally this is the way you see it used.

Well, you have a host of "teeth terminology" to be sure, and this web page goes into all of the terms with pictures to help. Let me close this essay, however, with the mention of one "tooth" term: tribosphenic. The term was coined in 1936 by G. G. Simpson in the journal Dental Cosmos (not on the 1000 must-read journal list before you die, I think). It is derived from the Greek tribo, meaning "friction" or "rubbing," and sphen, which means "wedge." Thus it was meant to be a general word to describe the teeth of mammals. These teeth generally have three "cusps," known technically as the protocone, paracone, metacone (though some teeth have four cusps--called quadritubercular or euthemorphic), and they "fit into" the lower tribosphenic teeth, which also have a trigonid set of cusps, called the paraconid, protoconid, metaconid. But you can check out the web site indicated, and consume the data to your heart's content. Just recall, however, that the major reason for all this terminology is not, in the first instance, to confuse, but rather to allow you to speak with precision. But once you learn all the words and can speak with precision, you can begin to tell if the person is smart...

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