Minute, simple, backward-curving teeth arranged in hundreds of rows—tiny relative to the shark.
A tiny isolated tooth is rarely identifiable to whale shark without an associated jaw or exceptional context.
01
ORIGINAL VISUAL PLATE
Front, edge and jaw position.
02
IDENTIFICATION TRAITS
What to inspect.
- Crown shape
- Several cusps
- Cutting edge
- Smooth edge
- Side cusplets
- No side cusplets
- Root
- Wide / nearly flat root
- Reference tooth height
- About 1–6 mm, depending on age and jaw position
- Jaw variation
- Hundreds of rows of tiny teeth; there is no large cutting tooth.
03
ECOLOGY + SCALE
The shark behind the tooth.
- Habitat
- Tropical and warm-temperate open oceans and productive coastal aggregations.
- Diet
- Plankton, fish eggs and small schooling organisms filtered from water.
- Estimated shark size
- Commonly 8–12 m (26–39 ft); the largest reliably measured animals are longer.
- Bite force
- Not meaningful as a feeding metric; this filter feeder does not process prey with a powerful bite.
- Fossil occurrence
- Sparse because the teeth are minute and fragile.
- Time range
- Living; sparse fossil record
04
FUNCTION
Form follows feeding.
The teeth play little role in filter feeding. Their small size makes them poor isolated fossils and a poor body-size proxy.
05
LOOKALIKES
Do not stop at the first match.
LivingBasking sharkVery small, smooth, curved teeth with variable hooked or conical crowns.Compare visual profile →LivingMegamouth sharkTiny, strongly curved hook-like teeth with a broad base, repeated in many rows.Compare visual profile →RELATED FORMSmall carpet sharksUse jaw position, locality, age and associated teeth to test this lookalike.
06
DIRECT COMPARISONS
Put it beside its closest rival.
AUTHORITATIVE REFERENCE
Open source ↗NOAA Fisheries
The visual plate is original TuffShark artwork and is not copied from the reference. Use the source alongside formation age, locality and associated material.
HAVE A TOOTH TO CHECK?
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