When it comes to teeth, we’re all on our last chance. Our first practice set was plucked, tooth by tooth, from beneath pillows quite a while ago.

However, a new study suggests they did things a little differently in the land of the dinosaurs. Nature may not have been so lenient in the extinction department, but with teeth? While they were here, dinos were treated to an unlimited supply.

Some of the largest herbivores, Diplodocus and Camarasaurus, had the ability to grow an entirely new set of teeth every one to two months. "It was sort of a disposable battery strategy," said Dr. Michael D. D'mic, a paleontologist at Stony Brook University and one of the study's authors. 'They didn't create high-quality teeth."

These two dinosaurs – gigantic sauropods nearly 100 feet long, had heads not much larger than those of horses. However, they required massive caloric intake to sustain themselves.

"They were really using their teeth a lot to snip off and swallow vegetation," Dr. D'Emic said.

The researchers counted lines of tooth dentin beneath the enamel to gauge the rates of tooth formation.

Camarasaurus stored as many as three extra teeth in each tooth socket. Every 63 days, a new set grew in. Diplodocus stored up to five replacement teeth in each socket and gained a new set every 35 days.

"Sauropods used this strategy of quantity over quality with great success. This is the opposite strategy of something like an elephant or horse, which invests a lot in a single large tooth that lasts a lifetime," he said.

The findings will be reported in the journal PloS ONE. The study was compiled during Dr. D'Emic's time as a doctoral student at the University of Michigan.

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