QUESTION

 

What is an egg tooth ?

 

ANSWER

 

An egg tooth is a small, sharp, cranial protuberance used by offspring to break or tear through the egg's surface during hatching.

 

In birds, the process of breaking open the eggshell is commonly referred to as pipping.

Baby birds have a pipping muscle on the back of their necks. It is this muscle which gives them the strength to force the egg tooth through the inner membrane of the eggshell.

When a baby bird becomes too large to absorb oxygen through the pores of its eggshell, it uses its egg tooth to peck a hole in the air sac located at the flat end of the egg. This sac provides a few hours worth of air, during which the baby bird breaks through the eggshell to the outside. The egg tooth falls off several days after hatching.

The only mammals to hatch from eggs, the duck-billed platypus and the echidna, also develop an egg tooth before birth.

 

Newly hatched baby showing its egg tooth

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 201015 yr by KAZ

Thank you for that informative post, Kaz and for the great, close up pictures.

Fantastic photos very educational