The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Gingivitis clxxi-clxxix

And that, said the Father of Teeth, is why I transformed myself into a Dimorphodon, which as you probably know was a sort of flying proto-reptile that flourished in the early Jurassic, some little time before I transformed myself into a Baluchitherium. The Dimorphodon is named for the versatility of its teeth, which it possessed in two varieties, unlike the other proto-reptiles which had only monotonous spikes lining their jaws like points on a very dull graph. My existence in that mode, said the Father of Teeth, was exquisitely simple, though not as simple as when I lived as a Dimetrodon. The Dimetrodon also had versatile teeth, but only according to size, which made things much less complicated, even before taking into account the fact that it was a sailor rather than a flyer.

Much later, said the Father of Teeth, I found out that the flying reptiles had transformed themselves into birds, which as you probably know have amalgamated all their teeth into a single implement called a beak or bill; an innovation which regrettably, and for reasons far too complicated to discuss with spiritual amphibians, I cannot pretend to approve.