Two years ago, Tundra, a brown bear at Lake Superior Zoo in Minnesota, got a root filling in one of his canine teeth.
But the tooth continued to malfunction. In the end, the zoo decided to try something that had never been done on a bear before.
The six-year-old 800 kilo bear was anaesthetized and got a dental crown – the largest ever made. Now it glimmers with silver when Tundra opens his mouth.
He has a little glitter in his smile now, says the zoo's marketing director Caroline Routley.
The dental crown in titanium alloy was made with the help of a wax impression of the bear's original canine tooth.
Tundra and his brother have lived at the zoo in Minnesota since the siblings' mother was killed when they were three months old.
