Dr. Sean McLaren traveled to Boston to help two gorillas who were in need of some dental work. McLaren and his assistant are professors for the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and they came to Boston to work on the teeth of Kiki and Gigi, two western lowland gorillas who reside at the Franklin Park Zoo. McLaren had worked on Gigi’s teeth in the past, and this time was looking to remove some of Kiki’s teeth as well. Gorilla’s teeth are a lot like human teeth, they are just much larger.

“They went well,” said McLaren about the procedures. He had donated his time to perform the extractions. “It takes a long time, because their bone is much more dense than human bone, and their teeth are larger. Kiki and Gigi both recovered beautifully with no complications at all. So it’s important to arrange the dental procedure in a way that won’t impact their routine. There are a lot of logistics behind the scenes that need to occur before and after the procedure.”

It actually has not become that uncommon for a dentist to come in and work on a gorilla’s teeth- it happened just a year before in San Fransisco when a gorilla’s canine became abscessed,

The closest thing to a great example of this I could find is “Gorilla Dentist”, a flash game.