These teeth overlap in both broad form and edge treatment. Root proportions, jaw position, size, age and locality must carry more weight than silhouette alone.
Broad, heavily serrated upper tooth or a narrower lower tooth with finer serrations.
Broad, slightly oblique serrated upper teeth with narrow, erect, finely serrated lower teeth.
Broad triangle / Narrow dagger
Broad triangle / Narrow dagger
Fine serrations / Coarse serrations
Coarse serrations / Fine serrations
No side cusplets
No side cusplets
Wide / nearly flat root / Two distinct root lobes
Wide / nearly flat root / Two distinct root lobes
10–38 mm reference range
8–36 mm reference range
Broad serrated uppers cut; narrower finely serrated lowers grip and pierce.
Broad serrated uppers and narrow finely serrated lowers.
Warm coastal seas, estuaries and freshwater rivers.
Warm-temperate and tropical continental shelves and offshore waters.
Fishes, rays, sharks, turtles, birds and mammals.
Fishes, sharks, rays, cephalopods and crustaceans.
Commonly 2–3.2 m (6.5–10.5 ft); large females can be longer.
Commonly 2.5–3.5 m (8–11.5 ft); large animals approach 4 m.
A theoretical study calculated 36–2,128 N anteriorly and 170–5,914 N posteriorly across 73–285 cm sharks.
No comparable whole-jaw species-wide value is established for this guide.
Carcharhinus-type teeth are common, but exact bull-shark attribution can be difficult.
Fossil teeth are reported, but isolated teeth may only be identifiable to genus or family.
Single upper teeth overlap strongly with dusky, sandbar and oceanic whitetip sharks. Exact species ID may require jaw position or locality.
Exact identification of an isolated upper tooth is often unsafe; bull and oceanic whitetip are major confusers.
Illustrations are original TuffShark diagrams, not photographs taken from either reference.
KEEP COMPARING