Small narrow upper teeth and broader, strongly oblique lower teeth that form a continuous cutting edge.
Without jaw position, sleeper-shark teeth should often remain at genus or family level.
01
ORIGINAL VISUAL PLATE
Front, edge and jaw position.
02
IDENTIFICATION TRAITS
What to inspect.
- Crown shape
- Narrow dagger or Hooked blade
- Cutting edge
- Smooth edge
- Side cusplets
- No side cusplets
- Root
- Wide / nearly flat root or Two distinct root lobes
- Reference tooth height
- About 5–22 mm, depending on age and jaw position
- Jaw variation
- Narrow uppers grip; oblique lowers overlap into a slicing band.
03
ECOLOGY + SCALE
The shark behind the tooth.
- Habitat
- Cold North Atlantic and Arctic waters from surface to great depth.
- Diet
- Fishes, seals, carrion and benthic prey.
- Estimated shark size
- Commonly 2.5–4.5 m (8–15 ft); very large individuals exceed 5 m.
- Bite force
- No reliable species-specific value is established; bite force changes with body size and bite point.
- Fossil occurrence
- Uncommon; sleeper-shark teeth are small and poorly diagnostic.
- Time range
- Living; fossil occurrence uncommon
04
FUNCTION
Form follows feeding.
Upper teeth grip while the lower dental band slices. The two jaws are so different that isolated teeth may appear unrelated.
05
LOOKALIKES
Do not stop at the first match.
AUTHORITATIVE REFERENCE
Open source ↗NOAA Ocean Exploration
The visual plate is original TuffShark artwork and is not copied from the reference. Use the source alongside formation age, locality and associated material.
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