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This fierce fish grows 20 new teeth each day
The Pacific lingcod, which feasts upon a wide variety of prey, replaces teeth much faster than expected—and it might not be alone.
The Pacific lingcod is an ill-tempered, omnivorous fish with a mouth like a messy silverware drawer, its 500-plus teeth arranged haphazardly on two sets of highly mobile jaws. New research, published this month in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reveals that the Pacific lingcod gains and loses an average of 20 teeth every day.
If humans had the same dental scheme, we’d replace a tooth daily. “Kind of makes braces useless,” says Adam Summers, professor of biology at the University of Washington and co-author of the study. “And brushing.”
The Pacific lingcod’s rate of tooth replacement came as a surprise to researchers, says study co-author Karly Cohen, a PhD student at the
