Do cats have more teeth than dogs? No, is the answer. It’s the opposite. Because cats have a shortened face they also have shortened jaws with less space for teeth. Cats have fewer teeth than other carnivores in fact; normally 28 or 30 compared with 42 for dogs and bears.
On smartphones please view the diagram below with the phone held horizontally to enlarge the image. Thanks.
There are different types of teeth for specialized tasks. The small incisors are for holding and nibbling. The rear molars act like scissors for cutting and slicing. The large canines are for delivering the killing bite and stabbing.
It has been suggested by an ethologist (the scientific and objective study of animal behavior), Paul Leyhausen, that the canine teeth of the cat are very precisely attuned to breaking the spinal cord of the cat’s prey. The canine teeth fit between the neck vertebrae of prey like a “key in a lock”. They are inserted between the vertebrae like a wedge forcing the vertebrae apart, breaking the prey’s spinal cord.
