–
SURYAKEPRI.COM – A type of fish called Pacific lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) has one of the most naturally toothed mouths, with about 555 teeth lining its two sets of jaws.
A recent study showed that these fish lose teeth as quickly as they grow them – at an astonishing rate of 20 teeth per day!
“Every bone surface in their mouth is covered in teeth,” said senior author Karly Cohen, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of Washington.
The Pacific lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) is a predatory fish found in the northern Pacific.
They reach 20 inches (50 centimeters) in length as adults, but some lingcods have reached 5 feet (1.5 meters) in length.
READ ALSO:
To understand how a Pacific lingcod mouth looks and functions, first discard almost everything you know about your own mouth.
Instead of incisors, molars and canines, this fish has hundreds of sharp, almost microscopic teeth in its jaws.
Their hard palate is also covered in hundreds of tiny tooth stalactites. And behind one set of jaws lies an additional set of jaws, called pharyngeal jaws, which these fish use to chew food just as humans use their molars.
As strange as this oral mechanism is in comparison to the mouths of mammals, the Pacific lingcod’s mouth is relatively common for bony fish, which, according to Cohen, makes it a good species to study.
For example, the teeth of an organism can reveal how and what it eats.
–
