I don’t know how many instances of one athlete biting another, during competition, I need to see before it becomes an “oh, that happens sometimes” situation to be handled by a shrug.

All I can tell you is … I’m not there yet.

I was in the offices of The National, working on the Wednesday morning newspaper, when the co-worker who sits across from me — and had a better view of the big-screen TV with Uruguay versus Italy on it — said: “Suarez has bitten someone again!”

It might be “again” but for me it may as well have been: “Wait, what? Adults don’t bite adults — unless they’re in an alley fight, or something. That can’t be true.”

Luis Suarez, Uruguay forward, may be the most consistent biter in sports history; that’s three incidents now, if he bit Giorgio Chiellini tonight, and it seems as if he did.

Two observations:

1. Suarez is being revealed as a serial biter, but he has yet to do real damage. Physical damage, that is. For that, we turn to Mike Tyson, who bit off a one-inch length of Evander Holyfield’s ear. And spit it out. While fighting for the heavyweight championship at Caesars Palace in 1997. I was there for that, sitting in the media area at ringside, and I saw Holyfield jump and I saw Tyson spit out the hunk of Holyfield’s ear (in my mind’s eye, I can still see it sailing through the air), and I remember not believing what my lying eyes had just told me. It was the all-time sports bite.

Suarez presumably will try to talk his way out of this one. Reporters were not able to get a straight answer from him, after the match, and Uruguay’s coach professed ignorance of the whole moment — which is what authority figures do before they realize that the evidence is too strong to ignore.

The camera angles we saw, via television, were not conclusive, but Chiellini certainly had the “jump and indignant spluttering” reaction of those on the receiving end of bites. I would imagine Fifa will call in Chiellini, to closely examine the spot on his shoulder he was trying to show to the referee … and if those line up with Suarez’s teeth — and they do sorta extend out of his mouth, as if he were born to bite — he ought to be suspended for the duration of the tournament.

2. We hate biters, don’t we? Well, perhaps not Uruguayan and Liverpool fans, but everyone else does.

“That dog is a biter; it will have to be put down.”

“That toddler in the diapers; she’s a biter.”

On the spectrum of human bad behavior, “biting” is pretty far out there. Even if it is some irrational impulse. It would be better to slap someone in the face than to bite them.

It is a profoundly anti-social behavior. And it blurs the line between human and wild animal, which we generally like to think is not so easily crossed. (Though I had no trouble, a year ago, coming up with five infamous sports biting episodes.)

If biters cannot control themselves, and Suarez seems to be there, they need to be taken out of situations (competitive sports, for instance) where their inner rage will not overpower the likely outcomes of bad behavior. Wright Thompson of ESPN wrote, like, 10,000 words suggesting Suarez’s biting is about a fear he will have to return to the rough streets of his youth. Whatever it is, we can’t have him around anymore.

3. Which leads, yes, to a third observation, and this is it: I am annoyed that this World Cup might be on the verge of being swallowed up by Luis Suarez today. Our Italy-Uruguay coverage turned into Luis Suarez biting coverage, and his vile behavior might overshadow what has been a compelling competition.

Thus, we need Fifa to act quickly and decisively. Even if it’s “the evidence is inconclusive”. I want a verdict tomorrow.