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A species of fish known as the Pacific reed has about 555 teeth, and a new study shows that these fish shed their teeth at an astonishing rate, about 20 a day.
“Every bony surface in their mouth is covered with teeth,” said senior author Karly Cohen, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Washington in the US.
The Pacific reedfish (Ophiodon elongatus) is a predatory fish found in the northern Pacific Ocean. It is 50 cm long at maturity, but some fish reach 1.5 m.
Instead of incisors, molars, and fangs, these fish have hundreds of sharp, almost microscopic teeth on their jaws. Their hard palate is also covered with hundreds of small toothed stalactites. And behind one set of jaws is another set of extra jaws, called pharyngeal jaws, which fish use to chew food the same way humans use molars.
The mouth of the Pacific reed fish is relatively normal for a bony fish.
Cohen and lead author of the study Emily Carr, a student at the University of South Florida, kept 20 Pacific relic fish in tanks at the University of Washington lab.
Since the teeth of Pacific reed fish are very small, it is not easy to find out how quickly these fish lose their teeth.
The researchers placed the reishi in a tank filled with a dilute red dye, which reddens the fish’s teeth. The researchers then transferred the fish to a tank filled with fluorescent green dye to stain the teeth again.
Then, Carr placed the tooth bones under a microscope in a dark lab and calculated the ratio between the small red teeth and the tiny blue teeth on all the toothed bones in the mouth of the Thai Binh reishi. Positive. In total, she counted more than 10,000 teeth on all 20 fish in captivity.
They found that the fish shed an average of about 20 teeth per day, Carr said.
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