Why do humans have sharp fangs?

Lions, hippos and all humans have fangs, long pointed teeth on the front teeth. These are actually the longest teeth in human teeth. Between the low teeth, what is the role of this long pointed tooth?

Contrary to popular belief, fangs are not used to cut meat . The reason is really more romantic than that.

Men today have fangs 10% longer than women. This difference is not unique to humans. Their close relative is also a gorilla, even to a greater degree. Males' canines are twice as long as females. That's because in gorilla society, males have to compete for monopoly to mate with all herds of females and males with the longest, more frightening canines that always win. Over time, gorillas evolved to have longer fangs. But in humans, we evolve in another direction.

Human fangs become shorter over time.

Human fangs become shorter over time . Consider the canines of the first human limb - Ardipithecus ramidus or Australopithecus anamensis compared to modern humans.

In fact, our canines are today the shortest ever . The difference between male and female canines also becomes less obvious. That is because unlike the current gorilla, the species with our ancestors, men stopped using their teeth to fight a long time ago.

Currently, scientists are not sure why this happens, but one possibility is that our children are becoming less self-defense, so men have to spend more time caring for children and less time. Women conquer time.

The end is that what remains in our mouths today is just a trace of fighting for advantage.

Today's canines are not particularly useful. First, they are not long enough to hold the prey as the lion does and are not big enough to make enemies falter like hippos. Instead, canines help us bite food .