Teeth are pretty incredible, and in the animal kingdom, teeth can be pretty terrifying! Here’s our list of the scariest teeth found in the wild.
The Great White Shark is the largest predatory fish on earth, and it wields a lot of impressive teeth. Great White Sharks have around 3,000 teeth in their mouth at one time in multiple rows on their jaws. If a tooth is lost, another one simply slides forward to replace it, and they grow a new one. These fascinating sharks are constantly growing teeth, and the Great White will go through around 30,000 teeth in its lifetime!
Did you know that Hippopotamuses have the largest teeth of any land animal? Their front incisors can grow to be 1.2 feet in length, and their canines can get to be 1.5 feet!
Which animal has the strongest bite force in the world? That title belongs to the Saltwater Crocodile, which has a bite force of 3,700 pounds per square inch! By comparison, humans can only generate a bite force of around 150 – 200 pounds per square inch.
Have you ever seen a saber-toothed pig? Well, now you have. The Babirusa is a hog with a dental problem, and has two very large canine teeth that can grow up to 8 inches long and even grow through their skin! The Babirusa’s canine teeth never stop growing, and their top canines can grow and curl back onto themselves.
The Payara fish is nicknamed the “Vampire Fish,” and earned the nickname with its incredible teeth. The Payara has two large fangs that grow from its lower jaw and go INTO the upper jaw and head of the fish. There are two negative spaces in the fish’s head where these 6-inch fangs rest when they aren’t being utilized by this carnivorous fish.
Did you know that animals have ways that they keep their teeth clean? Oral health routines shouldn’t be a wild concept to your family, though. Be sure that your family brushes their teeth twice per day for two minutes at a time and flosses once per day.
The teeth of an animal can be both interesting or frightening for a human being. Teeth are incredible when you remember that they are not only there to help you chew. Did you know that some living beings actually use their teeth to communicate with each other? A normal adult human mouth is made up of 32 teeth, but there are some animals with thousands of teeth in their mouths.
There is no doubt that the animal world holds many surprises and here, we want to discover them. If you want to know which animals have the most teeth in the world, then you cannot miss this AnimalWised article.
You may also be interested in: Do Turtles Have Teeth?
Thanks to million of years of evolution, animals have adapted to their ecosystems. They have developed in such a way that the make the best possible use of the characteristics which their own species hold. Can you guess which animal has the most teeth in the world? We will give you a clue, there are two of them, and no, they are not sharks:
A catfish's teeth
The catfish (Siluriformes) is the animal with the most teeth in the world. A catfish has an impressive amount of 9,280 teeth. There are more than 3000 species of catfish, each with their own characteristics. Apart from this peculiar attribute, some are capable of emitting small electrical discharges.
Although the teeth are small, the catfish uses all of them. With them, it feeds on: other fish, small tadpoles and small animals. Generally, it prefers to look for its prey in the bottom of rivers, among pebbles.
The "teeth" of the snail
And the top competitor to the catfish, to everyone's surprise, is a snail. A snail, with teeth? We had the same reaction. A snail is a gastropod mollusk, therefore, it does not have "teeth" in the strict sense of the word. A snails mouth holds a radula which is a cavity that hides denticles. Denticles are small tooth-like structures that are used to extract food from rocks and earth. A snail has almost 25,000 denticles.
For the most part, mammals share similarities with humans when it comes to their teeth. Specifically with the inclusion of: canines, incisors, premolars and molars, although of course it depends on whether the animal in question is herbivore or carnivore: the same tooth is not used to gnaw berries, leaves and roots, than to tear meat and/or break bones.
In this sense, the mammal that bears the title of having the most teeth is the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), also kown as the cachicamo. The giants armadillo has 100 teeth. The armadillo lives in South America and is in danger of extinction, mainly due to indiscriminate hunting and the collection of dissected specimens.
The award for the biggest teeth in the world goes to the elephant. An elephant has two huge tusks, proportional to its large size. They measure between 1 and 3 meters, weighing more than 100 kilos each. An elephant uses its tusks to protect itself.
When it comes to size, the narwhal also occupies a position in having large teeth (Monodon monoceros). His tusk, although longer than an elephant's measuring almost 6 meters in length, weighs only 10 kilos, therefore it does not surpass the powerful pachyderm.
These animals are not the only ones whose teeth are worth mentioning. The truth is that, taking a look at the fauna present on our planet Earth, we will find many interesting details about these indispensable instruments:
- Did you know that the giraffe has 35 teeth? Of all the animal kingdom, its teeth are the most similar to that of the human being, both in number and form.
- Did you know that dolphins do not chew with their teeth? They only use them to emit sound, because when feeding they prefer to swallow food in a single gulp.
- Did you know that a great white shark can have 20,000 teeth throughout its life? A shark has rows of teeth, organized one after another, so when it loses a tooth, it can be replaced very quickly.
- Did you know that the rabbit's teeth never stop growing? These mammals need something to constantly gnaw on, this is the only way they can wear out their teeth, which never stop growing.
TEETH ARE OUR PASSION, and while we spend most of our time focusing on human teeth, sometimes it’s fun to take a look at the truly amazing teeth of the animal kingdom. So today we’re going to hold the olympics of animal teeth, to see which critters win the gold for biggest, strongest, hardest, and most teeth, as well as the teeth that are simply the strangest.
The Biggest Chompers
If we’re talking teeth used for biting, then hippos are the winners. If we’re talking about any kind of tooth, however, then African elephants win easily — unless it’s a question of the ratio of body length to tooth length, in which case the narwhal steals the gold medal. Male narwhals can grow tusks longer than half the length of their entire bodies, yet scientists still aren’t entirely sure what their purpose is.
Having big teeth is great, but how much bite pressure can they use? Enormous tusks are useless in this area. The animal with the strongest bite in the world is the Nile crocodile. These scaly predators can snap their jaws with a whopping 5000 pounds per square inch of pressure. For comparison, we only use at most 200 psi to chew steak!
The Hardest Teeth
The hardest substance ever discovered in nature is the tooth of a limpet (sea snail). They have a tensile strength between 3 and 6.5 gigapascals, breaking the previous record of spider silk at 1.3 GPa. Limpets need super hard teeth in order to chew the algae off of hard rocks. The discovery of the hardness of limpet teeth could lead to technological breakthroughs in materials for construction, protective armor, and even dental fillings!
The Toothiest Jaw
Which animal do you think has the most teeth? Sharks, maybe? While sharks certainly do have a lot of teeth and are continuously regrowing ones that fall out, the answer is actually catfish, with the toothiest species sporting a staggering 9,280 teeth. These are cardiform teeth that look like tiny needles or hedgehog quills, and they’re arranged in rows and rows just inside their lips, angled backward so that once a catfish swallows something, it’s not getting back out.
Special Category: Weirdest Teeth
The gold for weirdest animal teeth has to go to the crabeater seal. These adorable swimmers have teeth that are individually serrated. They almost look like Christmas trees! But don’t worry; they don’t use them to saw through muscle and bone. No, the purpose of the weird shape is simply to strain krill. They take in a big gulp of krill-filled water, then close their teeth and squeeze out the excess water, keeping all that tasty krill trapped inside.
How Long Has It Been Since We Saw Your Chompers?
Do know of any other interesting animal teeth? We’d love to hear about them the next time you come in for an appointment. If it’s been a while since the last time we saw you, give us a call, and make sure you’re keeping up with your daily brushing and flossing in the meantime!