What Animal Has The Sharpest Teeth In The World

Jawless creature had globe'south sharpest teeth

These fossil teeth, just 1mm long allowed conodonts to interruption up food without applying much force. (Credit: D. Jones)

A jawless, eel-like creature had the sharpest teeth ever known, co-ordinate to a contempo discovery of fossil remains.

THE SHARPEST TEETH Ever discovered belong to a surprising animal: a jawless, eel-like vertebrate that lived from 500-200 meg years ago.

Scientists suspect the conodont was one of the get-go vertebrates ever to develop teeth. Despite having no jaw, its razor precipitous chompers – which taper down to the width of one-twentieth of a homo pilus – were capable of slicing with great forcefulness for their size.

"[The discovery] shows that fifty-fifty the earliest vertebrate teeth nosotros know of were extremely well-adjusted for capturing and breaking down nutrient," says evolutionary biologist Dr Alistair Evans from Monash Academy in Melbourne.

Razor sharp teeth from a common fossil

Alistair and his team discovered thefossil teeth in Ontario, Canada. Conodonts are a mutual fossil from the Precambrian eon and are found all over the world, including Australia. Their extinction – perplexing to scientists considering of how common they were – still remains a mystery.

These 1-2cm fish managed surprisingly well for their size. Conodonts were able to seize with teeth through prey much bigger than themselves without applying much pressure. "Information technology's nearly like a gear up of needles pointing out of the molar," says Alistair.

The discovery gives insight into the evolution of mammalian teeth too, he says. "We tin meet a lot of similarities in their shape [in mammals and conodonts]… This shows united states how full general these characteristics are for teeth as a whole."

Fine teeth compensated for picayune bite forcefulness

Humans adult less efficient, blunter teeth because they had jaws to apply pressure to nutrient morsels. Conodonts, on the other hand, could only utilize tiny forces since their teeth were direct embedded in cartilage, rather than jawbones. "Sharp teeth would quickly break and wear down under the pounding they would suffer with those large forces," says lead author Dr David Jones from the University of Bristol in England.

Fossil records propose that conodonts were some of the earliest known vertebrates (animals with a backbone), then they may have been among the first to develop functioning teeth. Only things may take become tough for conodonts in the latter role of their reign, comments Professor David Bellwood a marine biologist at James Cook Academy in Queensland. Every bit new creatures evolved, and "their prey became harder…they lost out to other [newer species] with fauna force and blunt teeth."

"It is an interesting insight into the costs and consequences of evolutionary trade-offs. Nosotros tin can see the same merchandise-offs today in the plethora of teeth [found] in coral reef fishes – although none tin can afford, or need to be, as sharp as their aboriginal conodont counterparts," says David. "I guess the blunt and dull inherited the World."

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Lodge B periodical.

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