Dingdingdingdingding!

Actually Dalek and fisherbear got pretty dang close.
Shawn doesn’t count because, as he said, he already knew what the word meant.

Andrew, who doesn’t really count in these quizzes because he lives with me and often hears me muttering, or shouting depending on the situation and the subject of study, actually looked up the etymology and came up with a bit that even *I* didn’t know.

DIPHYODONT
A critter with two sets of teeth. Most mammals fit in this category, but critters like horses, and rodents are brachydonts which means that the primary teeth they’re born with are the teeth that they live with their entire lives.
People are diphyodonts, cats and dogs and bats are diphyodonts because we have a set of primary teeth that erupt within a certain period of time after we’re born and are shed as we mature.

Andrew reports that the fragment diphy means “to move forward” which, if you think about how primary teeth are lost because the permanent teeth push them out of the way, makes damn good sense.

So grape jelly (or currant if you so desire 😀 ) all around.

Today’s word of the week is: EPITOPE.
Not anywhere near as fun as diphyodont, but much more relevant to the current topic of study.
Only 87 pages more to go before Thursday…..SIGH.