Predatory fish has 555 razor-sharp teeth that grow as quickly as they fall out
The Pacific lingcod fish has got 555 razor-sharp teeth. They lose their teeth at a rapid rate of 20 per day.
Pacific lingcod
Key Highlights
- The Pacific lingcod has hundreds of teeth lining in its mouth
- The predatory fish is usually found in North Pacific
- Their mouth is filled with tiny dental stalactites and has a second set of jaws
A fish has got 555 razor-sharp teeth - and they grow as quickly as they fall out. The Pacific lingcod has hundreds of teeth lining in its mouth. They lose their teeth at a rapid rate of 20 per day, according to a new study.
The predatory fish is usually found in North Pacific. The fish can reach up to 50 centimetres in adulthood. Notably, there have been reports of some fish reaching as big as 1.5 metres.
The fish has near-microscopic teeth that are razor sharp and cover every bony surface of the mouth.
Their mouth is filled with tiny dental stalactites and has a second set of jaws, which is called pharyngeal jaws.
Karly Cohen, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of Washington, and the study's lead author, Emily Carr, studied the fish to calculate just how many teeth they lost.
They collected teeth from 20 Pacific lingcod at the University of Washington laboratory.
Since the teeth of the Pacific lingcod are microscopic in size, the researchers would not have been able to spot them if they fell to the bottom of the tank. They had to think differently. They put a red dye in the tank, which stained the teeth red.
The fish were later moved to another tank with a fluorescent green dye to stain the teeth again.
Carr counted more than 10,000 teeth across the captive fish.
Carr told Live Science, "I had to work in a dark room, looking at teeth under a microscope. Karly says she stuck me in a closet and I came out with a paper."
The researchers also tried to find out if feeding the fish more made any difference to their tooth replacement cycle.
Carr said that feeding the fish showed no increase in tooth replacement and thus, is still a mystery.
