I love, fear, and respect teeth, and this book reaffirms this. Schutt is a talented writer and I fully enjoyed this book.

This time, Dr. Schutt looks at teeth and how the addition of teeth (or some other kind of mechanism to grind or tear apart food) afforded vertebrates the ability to be able to exploit the food in their environment. Teeth can also be used as defensive weapons. As a new cat mom to several kittens, I can personally attest to the fact that itty bitty kitten teeth are lethal.

Of course, I was most interested in the evolution of human teeth and how, over the many millennia, human jaws have gotten smaller, leaving little room for the third set of molars, the wisdom teeth. I didn’t have my wisdom teeth removed until I was in my fifties and sixties and that was probably a mistake because removing the bottom wisdom teeth left me in agony for weeks. Fair warning: get your wisdom teeth removed while young and before they’ve had a chance to entrench themselves in your jaw.

I really enjoyed reading Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans though I found the book’s beginning chapters on vampire bats to be a bit long and slow to read. Once I got past that part of the book, it picked up and I really enjoyed reading all about teeth, especially the early attempts of false teeth (contrary to popular belief, George Washington did not have wooden teeth). If you find the section about false teeth to be of interest, do check out Paul Craddock’s book Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery, which I reviewed and also enjoyed.

I would recommend Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans to anyone who has an interest in science or a casual interest in developmental biology. Dr. Schutt has made the subject very accessible and fun to read.

Bite by Bill Schutt, In The book Dr. William R Schutt Who has previously brought such great books as Eat Me, Cannibal and a couple of other greats now brings Bite i’m in the book we learn everything about the mouths of not only animals the humans as well from using it as a weapon to giving our body fuel to the history of modern dentistry and so much more. I love books by this zoologist because he tends to cover every bass from the high rate of Victorian era deaths due to tooth infection and other maladies to those cause by the bite’s of animals and sea predators to the evolution of teeth and birds he even dispels a myth that has plagued an area in South America about a tiny little catfish that would bourogh into the urinary tract of those brave enough to go into the areas waters. Despite his specialty being a vampire bats he doesn’t skimp on any other subject he takes time and he is a great author and always offers a five star read and is definitely in the top three of my favorite non-fiction writers.#NetGalley, #AlgonquinBooks, #BillSchutt, #Bite,

Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans might have a daunting title, but Bill Schutt has managed to make the topic interesting as well as digestible. Teeth have served vertebrates as weapons as well as tools to consume food. Teeth (the fossilized sort) have served anthropologists and other scientists as tools for understanding evolution, famine, war, and even social status.

Schutt presents to readers a smart, highly technical book that thoroughly explores his title subject in an approachable way. He assumes his readers are intelligent, and he adds a bit of humor to break up the technical detail.

Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the ARC.

Not only did I learn about teeth, but I also learned about the specifics of evolutionary biology by way of a specific feature of vertebrates. Bill Schutt covered all his bases, from the beginning of life to present-day animals, the variations of teeth and how they got them, and what that means for us. Personally, I feel like we shouldn't have to find a use for this information in order to appreciate it; nature doesn't exist solely for us to use it to our advantage, it just exists as it is. But Schutt says it a few times in the book: the people with the money to fund their research want a use for it. There are a few points where he and his fellow scientists lament this fact, and I kinda wish we got some information as to what we, as readers interested in this stuff, can do to help? Or is getting into science education and sharing this knowledge enough?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6713412448

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/94816be0-3d63-4189-b36b-37c93089c71a

Check out this review of Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans on Fable. https://fable.co/review/94393232-3de6-4116-92f8-1c61da4d850e/share