What do you think these are?
Where did they come from?
Why are they shaped like this?
Answers:
What do you think these are?
These are canine teeth from a wolf! Canine teeth are the long pointy teeth found near the front of the jaw in many mammals.
Where did they come from?
These teeth were found in the Pacific Northwest sometime before 1930. Today wolves in Washington State live mainly around the northeastern quadrant of the state, and are monitored and protected by state and tribal agencies.
Why are they shaped like this?
Canine teeth in wolves are, as with most purely carnivorous mammals, far more pronounced than in humans, because wolves need them both to procure their food and for defense. In an interesting contrast, scientists have noted a long-term decrease in size of the average human jaw over the past several thousand years, including a decrease in our canine-tooth size, resulting from adaptations to an agricultural mode of living.
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