Note there are one group of mammals that does keep regrowing teeth, cetaceans have re-evolved polydont by giving up the differentiated heterodont complex teeth of other mammals, they have lost the genes entirely. Now you might ask why mammals have only two sets of teeth while reptiles gain and lose teeth throughout life. Your own toothage may vary. Other vertebrates are polyphyodonts: their teeth are replaced throughout their entire life. As a human, our baby teeth start growing during the embryonic phase, consisting of ten top and bottom teeth. All birds do not have teeth. Vertebrates like fish and reptiles have baby teeth too. Dogs and cats, for example, get their baby teeth in a few weeks and then lose them in a few months (I don't know what that is … Deciduous teeth – commonly known as baby teeth, milk teeth, temporary teeth, and primary teeth – are the first set of teeth in the growth development of humans and other diphyodont mammals. Baby teeth don’t matter. Animals that replace their teeth continuously over the course of their lifetimes—such as sharks, geckos, alligators, and crocodiles—are known as polyphyodonts. The pattern found instead in most mammals (and believed to be primitive for the group) is diphyodonty, a term derived from Greek words meaning "twofold production of teeth." The word is not as difficult as it might seem. Most mammals are diphyodonts, meaning that they have two sets of teeth in their lifetime: deciduous, or “baby” teeth, and permanent teeth. And they come through, on an ingoing and outgoing basis throughout their life. By 6 weeks, all of the deciduous teeth are fully erupted. But why is it really necessary? Most mammals, however, have only two generations of teeth ** I’d especially like to hear from those who believe in evolution. Some notable mammals that are … Their eruption and replacement is species specific and can often be used to estimate age. They'd go broke.) Some birds might have bumps on their beaks, but they are not teeth. (Polyphyodonts don't have tooth fairies. For example, puppies and kittens are born without teeth. Most mammals are born with a special set of usually smaller, weaker teeth called milk teeth or deciduous teeth. It just means that we have two generations of teeth, generally known as our baby teeth and our permanent teeth (oh, if only the last were true!) ** As for why we don’t continually grow teeth, like sharks, for example, it probably has to do with our tooth structure. It is a term describing any animal that has two successive sets of teeth. Most mammals also have two sets of teeth. These are just little ridges to help them chew their food. The deciduous teeth fall out and the adult teeth start coming in at around 12 weeks. Why haven’t we evolved to grow new teeth? Most mammals have deciduous teeth ("baby" or "milk" teeth). Wrong. We have a total of 20 deciduous or baby teeth and 32 permanent teeth. 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