A species of fish known as the Pacific rockfish has about 555 teeth, and a new study shows that these fish lose teeth at an astonishing rate of around 20 teeth per day.
“Every bony surface in their mouths is covered with teeth,” said senior author Karly Cohen, a PhD biology student at the University of Washington, USA.
The Pacific rockfish has a total of over 500 teeth.
Pacific rockfish (Ophiodon elongatus), also known as greenling or mottled rockcod, is a predatory fish found in the northern Pacific. It reaches a length of 50 cm when mature, but some individuals can grow up to 1.5 m.
At first glance, you might not realize it, but this fish has one of the most fearsome mouths in the world.
Instead of incisors, molars, and canines, these fish have hundreds of sharp, almost microscopic teeth on their jaws. Their hard palate is also covered with hundreds of tiny tooth-like structures. Behind this jaw is another set of jaws, known as the pharyngeal jaw, which the fish uses to chew food similarly to how humans use molars.
The mouth of the Pacific rockfish appears relatively normal for a bony fish.
Cohen and the lead author of the study, Emily Carr, a student at the University of South Florida, raised 20 Pacific rockfish in tanks at the University of Washington’s lab.
Because the teeth of Pacific rockfish are so small, determining how quickly these fish lose teeth is no simple task.
The research at the University of South Florida and the University of Washington began investigating the tooth loss process of rockfish by placing them in a tank filled with diluted red dye, which colored the fish’s teeth red. The researchers then transferred the fish to a tank filled with fluorescent green dye to color the teeth again.
Thus, the teeth that grew on one day were red, while the teeth that appeared later were green.
Afterward, the researchers meticulously counted and categorized all the colored teeth from the 20 specimens, yielding a total of 10,580 teeth.
They discovered that this species of fish loses an average of about 20 teeth per day, Carr stated.
PhD student and co-author Karly Cohen noted, “This makes us think that fish replace their teeth very quickly. For you and me, it’s like waking up every morning and losing a tooth.”
The findings of this study challenge the common perception that teeth are very difficult to produce and replace. Clearly, for some species, they can be easily lost and replaced, much like hair for us.
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