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Jawless Creature Had the World's Sharpest Teeth

Posted by samzenpus on from the his-bite-is-worse-than-his-bark dept.

ananyo writes "An extinct primitive marine vertebrate had the sharpest dental structures ever known — with tips just one-twentieth of the width of a human hair, but able to apply pressures that could compete easily with those from human jaws. The razor-sharp teeth belonged to conodonts, jawless vertebrates that evolved some 500 million years ago in the Precambrian eon and went extinct during the Triassic period, around 200 million years ago. The creatures roamed the planet for longer than any other vertebrate so far–– and despite their lack of jaws, they were the first creatures to evolve teeth (abstract)."

10 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Here is the wikipedia article by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Informative

    of this eel-like creature... looks like we don't know much about them aside from their teeth?

    Meteorites suck. I mean blow.

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    1. Re:Here is the wikipedia article by Randle_Revar · · Score: 2

      There is no particular reason to think the Triassic-Jurassic extinction was caused by an impact event.

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  2. Freaky Beasties by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here are some speculative drawings of the creatures. Getting caught in a swarm of thrashing sharp dental structures would make a good horror film.

    1. Re:Freaky Beasties by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      "Heterochrony in cavusgnathid conodonts"

      I love titles that I cannot begin to pronounce, much less understand.

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    2. Re:Freaky Beasties by wiedzmin · · Score: 2

      I disagree. I would watch a movie that said Jawless in red bloody letters and had one of those things on the poster.

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  3. Just when you thought... by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water ... JAWLESS!

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  4. Re:How accurate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not as much as you would think. Conodonts are composed of calcium phosphate -- the same stuff as our teeth. It's fairly durable mineral. They are usually extracted from rocks in almost unaltered state. Conodonts do get broken and worn like any other sediment particle, so sometimes they're a bit beaten up, but often they are nearly intact despite being fairly fragile-looking structures. Sometimes their surfaces even show wear from the time when the animal was alive (i.e. tooth wear). Growth lines and other structures are visible internally.

    The rest of the animal -- the body -- is soft tissues, so that part rarely preserves and is flattened even when it is preserved, however, multiple specimens compressed in different orientations reveal the 3D structure. There are also slightly more robust structures around the eye sockets (sclerotic capsules).

  5. Hagfish by pauljlucas · · Score: 2

    Aren't these living creatures related?

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    1. Re:Hagfish by Randle_Revar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Everything is related, it is a question of how closely. Seems some taxonomies put them near the hagfish class and the lamprey class, however a 2010 paper argues they are not Vertebrata at all, or even Craniata.

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  6. Re:Dentist insight... by skegg · · Score: 2

    I don't think you could call their design flawed: they roamed this planet for about 1/3 billion years.
    From the summary:

    The creatures roamed the planet for longer than any other vertebrate so far.