From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2006-02-08 20:46:30 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] sugar
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Patty raises excellent points. Just a quick look at human teeth compared to ferret teeth gives a huge amount of dietary history.
In humans going from the front quadrant and working backwards we have incisors That are spatulate -- good for slicing and bringing vegetable matter, especially fruit, into the mouth -- and our ancestors went one step further and the ones with the canines most shaped like incisors succeeded more, so we tend to lack fangs and have three front teeth in a row in each quadrant that look somewhat similar, with incisorform canines. At the back of our mouths, behind our premolars (which dentists call bicuspids) are our molars which speak to a long history of chewing grains. Things that had been a long time in the ancestral diet that are reflected in such flat molars with grinding surfaces are tough things that need to be pulverized. There are also other features such as soft tissue items found in the Theropithecus Complex which reflect a long prehistory of gramnivory (grain eating).
In ferrets on the other hand at the start of the quadrant there are grooming and skinning incisors, followed by fang canines which are good for defense and prey acquisition, but also have an interactive function with the incisors. The canines cause not only their puncture, but if the skin is thick enough and there is a firm enough base behind the skin, there are four rays that form, like a cross, one forward, one backward, and one to each side, so that a box is slit one each side with two extra rays out from each corner. Then the incisors slip into the inside to inside slits, scrape under the skin between the adjoining perpendicular slits which form the box shape, and pull. The premolars and molars are also modified, and these are where you find the strongest reflection of ferrets and many other members of Carnivora being carnivorous because these teeth are greatly modified for slicing and can do quite a number that way. There are also soft tissue changes that also reflect meat eating for an exceedingly long time in the history of ferrets, such as the lack of a caecum.
So, yes, how their organ, including the pancreas, behave compared to how the human organs behave when given carbohydrates will reflect their own long standing dietary adaptations and limitations, and certainly will differ from humans in a number of regards, though not in all.
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