Dent-de-Lion

A dentist visited the Oklahoma City Zoo on Tuesday to help ease the king of the jungle's royal pain in the mouth.

Officials said Aslan, an 11-year-old, 394-pound male lion was seen by a dentist and zoo veterinarians to take care of what they initially thought was a bad tooth, reported KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla.

"We were smelling a bad smell, and he was drooling some, and so we suspected it might be a tooth problem," said zoo veterinarian Dr. Sherri Huntress. "We were able to get a very brief look at him awake, and we suspected that he had something wrong with one of his back teeth."

Dr. Shannon Griffin said she received a call about a week ago about a lion with a possible tooth problem. On Tuesday, she said, her team made the lion comfortable and then went to work, discovering he had a 3-inch piece of bone stuck in the roof of his mouth.

"And while we had him comfortable, we went ahead and cleaned and made sure that he will not be prone to further dental disease," she said.