>
> Date:    Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:07:15 -0700
> From:    Wally Day <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: raw x cooked
>
> Alas, an argument that seems to come up quite a bit - especially in
> vegetarian circles. Here's a link to a set of teeth belonging to a mostly
> vegetarian animal- http://www.whyveg.co.uk/images/gorilla.jpg. Convince 
> me,
> based on his denture, that he's not a carnivore.

*** The male gorilla's large canines, while appearing similar to those of a 
carnivore, are for the purpose of dominance and sexual display. Female 
gorillas do not have them. The gorilla's incisors are large and 
chisel-shaped, like those of herbivores, and are of use processing plant 
materials. Carnivores generally have shorter, rounder, and more widely 
spaced incisors suitable for gripping and holding, not for biting off pieces 
of food. The gorilla has flat grinding molars that oppose one another such 
that fibrous plant materials can be crushed between them, unlike the 
scissor-like arrangement of the carnivore's molars, that permits shearing of 
meat and tendon and crushing of bone, but makes grinding plant materials 
impossible. The gorilla's molars and premolars are also set one touching the 
next, unlike carnivore molars and premolars which have spaces in between. 
Lastly, the gorilla has a weak but mobile herbivore-style jaw joint (above 
the plane of the teeth), that allows lateral and front to back movements to 
facilitate grinding, unlike the stronger but less mobile hinge-like 
carnivore jaw joint (on the plane of the teeth) that permits massive 
crushing power but no lateral chewing motion.

--Carrie