Low, broad crushing crown with ridges or bumps instead of a cutting blade.
Species-level identification depends on the ridge pattern and requires a specialist key.
01
ORIGINAL VISUAL PLATE
Front, edge and jaw position.
02
IDENTIFICATION TRAITS
What to inspect.
- Crown shape
- Flat / crushing
- Cutting edge
- Smooth edge
- Side cusplets
- No side cusplets
- Root
- Wide / nearly flat root
- Reference tooth height
- About 5–65 mm, depending on age and jaw position
- Jaw variation
- Low ridged teeth were arranged into broad pavement-like crushing batteries.
03
ECOLOGY + SCALE
The shark behind the tooth.
- Habitat
- Cretaceous shallow to offshore marine environments.
- Diet
- Hard-shelled prey such as bivalves and ammonites inferred from crushing dentition.
- Estimated shark size
- Species estimates vary widely; some large forms may have exceeded 7 m (23 ft).
- Bite force
- Not directly measurable.
- Fossil occurrence
- Cretaceous crushing teeth are widespread and sometimes occur in dental plates.
- Time range
- Cretaceous
04
FUNCTION
Form follows feeding.
Ptychodus had pavement-like dental plates for hard prey. Its teeth do not resemble the familiar triangular shark-tooth outline.
05
LOOKALIKES
Do not stop at the first match.
06
DIRECT COMPARISONS
Put it beside its closest rival.
AUTHORITATIVE REFERENCE
Open source ↗Paleobiology Database
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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