Smooth, pointed lamnid tooth with paired basal cusplets, closely resembling the porbeagle.
An isolated salmon-shark tooth is usually best reported as Lamna unless locality or associated material is known.
01
ORIGINAL VISUAL PLATE
Front, edge and jaw position.
02
IDENTIFICATION TRAITS
What to inspect.
- Crown shape
- Narrow dagger
- Cutting edge
- Smooth edge
- Side cusplets
- One on each side
- Root
- Two distinct root lobes or Rounded U-shaped root
- Reference tooth height
- About 8–32 mm, depending on age and jaw position
- Jaw variation
- Smooth main cusp and paired cusplets, extremely close to porbeagle.
03
ECOLOGY + SCALE
The shark behind the tooth.
- Habitat
- Cold North Pacific coastal and offshore waters.
- Diet
- Salmon, herring, squid and other pelagic prey.
- Estimated shark size
- Commonly 2–2.6 m (6.5–8.5 ft); large females approach 3 m.
- Bite force
- No reliable species-specific value is established; bite force changes with body size and bite point.
- Fossil occurrence
- Sparse; isolated Lamna teeth commonly remain genus-level.
- Time range
- Living; uncommon fossil record
04
FUNCTION
Form follows feeding.
Anterior teeth are taller and laterals more oblique. The overall dentition is adapted to gripping fast pelagic fishes.
05
LOOKALIKES
Do not stop at the first match.
AUTHORITATIVE REFERENCE
Open source ↗Alaska Department of Fish and Game
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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