Alie Ward

Were they ever made of cartilage and get harder or they were always mineralized?

Did animals ever have like kind of gummy, like kind of teeth?

It sounds like a teratoma, you know?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

A blob item with teeth sticking out everywhere.

But what did they use them for on the outside?

please, please see our gorology episode about long, cute, ancient, patient, boopable nightmare fish with the iconic biologist and punster, Dr. Solomon David, as well as our teratology episode about the history and culture of monsters in fiction.

Because a teratoma is a blob that can grow in your body, but with fully formed teeth and clots of hair.

And if you listen to the end of the episode, I'll tell you my own personal secret about teratomas.

But yes, millions of years before actual teeth,

Yeah.

Those are odontotes?

I love that the big teeth in a shark are what freak people out, but little do they know they have an army of tiny teeth also backing them up.

So the first ones, though, were outside the body.

When did they start merging into the whole body?

How big were these outside ones?

Were they teeny or were they like... I feel like I should just show you.

Yeah, grab one.

Yeah?

Okay.