Rondal Mims, age 9, of Timmonsville, South Carolina, for her question:

How many teeth does a Jackrabbit have?

Mother Nature provides each animal with the right sort of teeth to eat his favorite food. The jackrabbit is a vegetarian who eats no meat. Often he lives where all he can find is tough, stringy grass. Naturally this sort of food takes a lot of chewing. And, naturally, the jackrabbit has just the right sort of teeth for the job. Actually, this long legged ieaper has 28 teeth and most of them are molar type teeth, designed for chewing.

Meat eating animals have fang type canine teeth for tearing their food into swallowable bites. The jackrabbit has no canine teeth because, being a vegetarian, he does not need them. In the front of his mouth, he has incisor teeth for biting. There are four incisors in his upper jaw and two in his lower jaw. Along the sides, he has ten chewers called premolars    six in the upper jaw and four in the lower jaw. In the back he has 12 molars, six above and six below. These tough molars can do the toughest chewing he needs to do.