Do Bearded Dragons Have Teeth? How Many, Tooth Loss & Dental Care

Yes, bearded dragons have teeth. Quite a lot of them. Run a fingertip along an adult’s jaw and you’ll feel a row of small, sharp points, and most owners never look any closer than that.

They should, because of one design detail: the side teeth are fused to the jawbone and never grow back. That single fact explains why dental disease is so common in pet dragons. In a study of 304 bearded dragons seen at 20 UK vet practices, half had dental abnormalities, and so did nearly 9 in 10 dragons over eight years old. Three in four of the affected dragons showed no outward signs at all. This guide covers how bearded dragon teeth work, how many they have, what’s normal and what isn’t, and the few habits that actually protect them.

• Yes, Bearded Dragons Have Teeth: Two Kinds on One Jaw
• How Many Teeth Do Bearded Dragons Have?
• Do Bearded Dragon Teeth Fall Out or Grow Back?
• Dental Disease Is Common, and Usually Silent
• The Five Stages of Dental Disease
• Signs of Dental Problems
• How to Check Your Dragon’s Teeth Without Opening Its Mouth
• Should You Brush a Bearded Dragon’s Teeth?
• Diet: The Part You Control
• What Dental Treatment Involves and Costs
• Timing Dental Work Around Brumation
• FAQ

Yes, Bearded Dragons Have Teeth: Two Kinds on One Jaw

Most lizards have one type of tooth. Bearded dragons have two, which is exactly why developmental biologists use them to study how teeth regrow.

Front teeth: replaceable

At the very front of the upper and lower jaws sit a handful of small, peg-like teeth, about 11 in total. These are pleurodont teeth, attached along the inner side of the jaw, and like the teeth of most lizards they’re shed and replaced again and again over the dragon’s life (Salomies et al., Science Advances, 2021).

One fun detail from the research: a hatchling’s center front tooth is its egg tooth, a large forward-pointing tooth used to slit the eggshell. It’s later replaced by an ordinary front tooth (Salomies et al., eLife, 2019).

Side teeth: permanent

Everything behind those front teeth works differently. The side teeth are acrodont: triangular, fused directly onto the top edge of the jawbone, with no sockets and no replacement teeth waiting underneath. LafeberVet’s reptile dental anatomy guide, written by Dr. Christal Pollock, puts it plainly: acrodont teeth are easily lost and are not replaced.

New side teeth are added at the back of the jaw while a dragon is young, so the biggest and newest teeth sit furthest back. That addition slows and probably stops early in life. In a 2018 PeerJ study of bearded dragon jaws, a juvenile measuring 103 mm from snout to vent already had 16 tooth positions on each side of the lower jaw, while an adult more than twice its length had just 17 (Haridy, PeerJ, 2018).

Normal wear

Over the years, the front-most side teeth grind down. In the PeerJ specimens, an adult’s front side teeth were almost completely worn away, while the inside of each tooth filled in with dentine and bone as it wore. So on an older dragon, short, flat side teeth near the front of the mouth are normal wear. Missing teeth and receding gums are a different story.

How Many Teeth Do Bearded Dragons Have?

There’s no tidy official number, and the “80 teeth” figure repeated online rarely comes with a source. Here’s what researchers actually counted:

Assume the upper jaw carries a similar number to the lower and an adult lands somewhere around 70 to 80 teeth. Treat that as an estimate rather than a fixed count. The front teeth come and go, so the number on any given day can shift by a few.

Do Bearded Dragon Teeth Fall Out or Grow Back?

It depends entirely on which tooth.

Side teeth usually go missing for one of two reasons: gum disease destroying the bone that holds them, or trauma, such as a fall, a fight with a tank-mate, or biting down on something hard. LafeberVet specifically warns that acrodont teeth lost to infection or fracture will not be replaced, which is also why nobody should ever force a dragon’s mouth open. More on that below.

Dental Disease Is Common, and Usually Silent

Here’s what new owners often miss: dental disease in bearded dragons rarely looks like anything until it’s advanced.

The acrodont design is the reason. Because the teeth sit on top of the jawbone, there’s a strip of bone between where the tooth attaches and where the gum attaches, and that exposed area is easily damaged and infected (Chitty, Veterinary Practice Today, 2019). Plaque builds up, hardens into tartar, the gum pulls back, and infection can reach the bone. Meanwhile, as LafeberVet notes, many reptiles keep eating while gum disease worsens.

The best numbers come from a UK study by Mott, Pellett and Hedley, published in the Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine. Vets at 20 practices examined every bearded dragon that came through their doors between March and October 2018. Half of the 304 dragons had dental abnormalities or disease, and age was the biggest factor:

Only about a quarter of the affected dragons (24.8%) showed any outward signs, and every one of those already had advanced disease (Clinician’s Brief summary of the study). If you’re waiting to see a problem, you’re waiting too long.

The study also linked dental disease to an abnormal body condition (too thin or overweight), other illness at the same time, and one diet item in particular. That item was fruit, covered in the diet section below.

The Five Stages of Dental Disease

Exotic vets grade dental disease in bearded dragons on a 0 to 5 scale proposed by Simpson in 2014 and described by John Chitty, an RCVS Advanced Practitioner in Zoological Medicine. The line that matters falls between grade 2 and grade 3.

Grades 1 and 2 can be cleaned up and reversed. From grade 3 on, the damage to gum and bone is permanent, and treatment is about stopping it getting worse. That’s the whole case for catching it early.

Signs of Dental Problems

Look for these, roughly in the order they tend to appear:

• Staining on the side teeth, or a crusty build-up along the gumline
• Red or swollen gums, or gums pulling back from the teeth
• Bone showing between the gum and the base of the teeth
• Missing, broken or loose side teeth
• Swelling along the jaw or face. When infection spreads into the surrounding tissue, Chitty describes soft swelling with closed eyes and inflamed eyelids.
• Weight loss, eating less, or trouble chewing

Any swelling of the jaw or face needs a prompt vet visit, because it can mean the infection has reached the bone. Our symptom checker will tell you how urgent other combinations of signs are.

A note on “mouth rot.” Many sites lump everything above under that name, but vets separate the two. In bearded dragons the usual problem is periodontal disease at the gumline around the permanent side teeth, while true stomatitis, infection spreading through the lining of the mouth, is unusual in lizards (Chitty, 2019). Our mouth rot guide covers mouth infections, treatment and recovery in detail.

How to Check Your Dragon’s Teeth Without Opening Its Mouth

You don’t need to open the mouth at all. You shouldn’t. In Veterinary Practice Today, Chitty tells owners the check is easier with the mouth held closed: just turn up the lips. Opening the mouth only raises the odds of getting bitten, and of a dragon chewing and swallowing a cotton bud.

1. Pick a calm moment. After basking, when your dragon is warm and relaxed, works best. Support the body with one hand.
2. Lift the lip, not the jaw. With a fingertip, gently roll the upper lip up at the side of the mouth, then the lower lip down. The mouth stays closed.
3. Look along the side teeth at the gumline. You want gums that sit snugly around the base of the teeth, with no crust, no angry red line and no bare bone.
4. Take a quick photo of each side. Slow changes are hard to spot by eye. Comparing this month’s photo with last month’s makes them obvious.
5. Repeat once a month, and ask your vet for a dental grade at every yearly exam.

Should You Brush a Bearded Dragon’s Teeth?

Only once a vet has shown you how. The veterinary sources don’t fully agree on who needs it: Chitty describes weekly gumline cleaning both as prevention and as early treatment, other clinics reserve it for dragons that already show disease, and some care guides say a healthy dragon on a good diet needs none. What kept coming up across all of them is that this is a skill you learn in the clinic, not something to improvise at home.

Given the age numbers above, our view is simple: for any dragon over three, or any dragon your vet grades at 1 or 2, ask for a demonstration at the next visit.

Chitty’s protocol has owners clean the gum areas weekly with dilute chlorhexidine or povidone-iodine, after being trained in the clinic. Town N Country Animal Hospital describes a cotton-tipped applicator dipped in warm water or diluted chlorhexidine every two to three days. Frequency varies by case, so follow your own vet.

• Use the dilution your vet gives you. Clinicians use chlorhexidine at around 0.05% for this (Clinician’s Brief). Stronger solutions damage healthy tissue.
• Keep the mouth closed. Lift the lip and wipe along the gumline only.
• Hold the swab firmly by the stick and check the cotton tip is still intact when you finish. A chewed-off tip can be swallowed.
• No human toothpaste.

Diet: The Part You Control

Older care guides blame soft insects for dental disease. The best data points somewhere else.

In the UK study, the kind of live food a dragon ate and whether it ate vegetables made no significant difference to dental disease. Fruit did. Dragons fed fruit had 2.68 times the odds of dental disease, and 66% of them had it. The authors’ conclusion was that fruit could be the main dietary risk factor and should be left out of the captive diet entirely. They point to its sugar and acidity.

Our bearded dragon diet guide already treats fruit as dessert, 10% of the diet at most. For teeth, we’d go further: for any dragon over three, or any dragon with staining or tartar, drop fruit entirely. A dragon on a varied greens-and-vegetable diet doesn’t need it. You can check the sugar-heavy items in our food list, where fruit is rated separately from the staples.

Insects still matter, just not as toothbrushes. Hard-bodied feeders like dubia roaches and crickets make better staples than waxworms anyway, and Chitty advises against an all-soft diet. Follow the age-based ratios in our feeding schedule.

Calcium and UVB count too. Chitty lists metabolic bone disease as a contributing factor in some cases, so getting UVB lighting and calcium supplementation right protects the jaw as well as the skeleton. Our MBD guide explains the link.

What Dental Treatment Involves and Costs

Treatment depends on the grade.

Grades 1 and 2: Chitty notes the gumline can sometimes be cleaned while the dragon is awake, followed by home care and a diet change.

Grades 3 to 5: expect anesthesia with a breathing tube, dental X-rays, ultrasonic scaling, removal of infected tissue, pain relief and a long course of antibiotics chosen by culture (Mott, Pellett and Hedley, via Clinician’s Brief). Where infection has reached the bone, the vet may need to remove dead bone, sometimes whole sections of jaw, and pack the defect with antibiotic gel or manuka honey for daily cleaning (Chitty, 2019).

We couldn’t find published fee data for reptile dental procedures, so here’s what we can pin down, using the same ranges as our bearded dragon cost guide:

The cheapest dental treatment is the one done at grade 1 or 2, during a yearly exam you were already paying for. If you don’t have a reptile vet yet, our vet finder can help you find an exotic clinic.

Timing Dental Work Around Brumation

Fall is when many dragons wind down for brumation, so it’s a good time to think about the mouth.

VCA’s Dr. Gregory Rich recommends a vet exam before brumation and says only healthy dragons should brumate, since dragons with poor nutrition or parasites can wake up critically ill (VCA Animal Hospitals). We’d treat an active jaw infection the same way. A practical plan:

• Ask for a dental grade at the pre-brumation check. Our care calendar can remind you when it’s due.
• If treatment under anesthesia is needed, schedule it while your dragon is warm, active and eating: before brumation starts, or in spring once it’s fully awake and eating again. Talk the timing through with your vet.
• Don’t let a dragon with an untreated jaw infection brumate.

FAQ

The Bottom Line

Bearded dragons have plenty of teeth, but the ones that matter most never grow back, and dental disease rarely shows until it’s advanced. Lift the lip once a month, keep fruit rare or off the menu, and ask for a dental grade at every vet visit. That covers most of the job. For handling and bite questions, see our guide on whether bearded dragons bite.

This guide is general care information, not veterinary advice. If your bearded dragon shows signs of illness, use our symptom checker or contact an exotic vet.

Sources & Further Reading

• Mott R, Pellett S, Hedley J (2021). Prevalence and risk factors for dental disease in captive Central bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) in the United Kingdom. Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine, 36: 1–7.
• Clinician’s Brief — Dental Disease in Central Bearded Dragons (research summary)
• Chitty J (2019). Periodontitis in lizards. Veterinary Practice Today, 7(3): 62–65.
• Pollock C (2018). Understanding Reptile Dental Anatomy: Clinical Applications. LafeberVet.
• Salomies L, Eymann J, Khan I, Di-Poï N (2019). The alternative regenerative strategy of bearded dragon unveils the key processes underlying vertebrate tooth renewal. eLife, 8: e47702.
• Salomies L, Eymann J, Ollonen J, Khan I, Di-Poï N (2021). The developmental origins of heterodonty and acrodonty as revealed by reptile dentitions. Science Advances, 7(51): eabj7912.
• Haridy Y (2018). Histological analysis of post-eruption tooth wear adaptations, and ontogenetic changes in tooth implantation in the acrodontan squamate Pogona vitticeps. PeerJ, 6: e5923.
• Rich G (2024). Brumation in Bearded Dragons. VCA Animal Hospitals.
• Town N Country Animal Hospital (2024). Keeping a Bearded Dragon’s Teeth Clean.