Chisel Shovel
Naked mole rats use their teeth for hard labor, too. T ese hairless, tubular, wrinkled little rodents have only one thing on their mind, and that is to dig. Naked mole rats live their entire lives
underground. T ey create elaborate tunnels and burrows. And to do so, they rely on their teeth. T ey use their incisors as shovels to tunnel, tunnel, tunnel. When expanding a burrow, mole rats work
Chisel
You won’t see a beaver biting into prey. Beavers use their teeth for hard labor, like cutting down trees. You’d have to have pretty tough teeth to be able to do that. Beavers’ teeth have qualities most people would envy. It’s true that beavers don’t brush their teeth,
but they do have protection against tooth decay. How? Beavers’ teeth contain iron. T is metal is part of the chemical structure of their teeth. As you probably know, a hard outer shell
called enamel covers your teeth. For beavers, iron forms an orange enamel, or coating, on the front of their teeth. T e backs of their teeth remain soſt and white. As a beaver chews wood, the soſt er side
wears away faster. T is creates sharp teeth with a chisel-like cutting edge. Using their powerful jaws, a beaver can chisel away at a tree. It can fell a medium-size tree in a single night!
in an assembly line. T ey line up nose-to-tail. At the front, a “digger” mole rat uses its teeth to break through the soil. T e “sweepers” then use their feet and the fine hairs between their toes to sweep the soil backwards. At the rear, a mole rat called the “volcanoer” kicks the soil up onto the surface, creating a mound shaped like a volcano. Naked mole rats have such flexible
teeth, they can move their lower incisors independently of one another. So they can move their teeth a little like chopsticks.
6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
Shovel
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24