CUTTING TEETH


  • There are three basic types of shark teeth: cutting, crushing and impaling
  • Some sharks make use of more than one type
  • Baby shark teeth are in many cases quite different from adult teeth even within the same species
  • Thus using teeth to identify a fossil's species can be very tricky 
  • Cutting teeth are used for biting a piece out of prey or for biting through prey

Megalodon
From mounted display
Specimen courtesy Canadian Museum of Nature

bharris@chat.carleton.ca