Look Ma No Cavities! Shanghai Zoo Hippos Get A Toothbrush

The hippos at the Shanghai Zoo in China will no longer have any reason to fear a visit from the dentist. That's because the zoo officials have finally built a special four-foot long toothbrush to take care of their pearly whites.

While wild hippos do not need their teeth cleaned because their diet comprises primarily of grass, at the zoo they are fed many different fruits and vegetables, which tend to get stuck inside their teeth and hence require regular cleaning.

The zoo, which encourages the public to watch the teeth cleaning, had hitherto been using brooms to clean out the hippo's ginormous 4 ft-deep mouths that contain a pair of large incisors on each jaw and a row of curved lower canine teeth, which can grow up to three feet and are a coveted source of ivory. No word on whether the hippos use toothpaste or mouthwash though!

sources: telegraph.co.uk, latestchina.com