User:Jsolberg/sandbox

Types and Functions
There are four basic types of shark teeth that vary according to diet; those species that have dense flattened teeth for crushing, those that have needle-like teeth for gripping, those that have pointed lower teeth for gripping and triangular upper teeth with serrated edges for cutting, and those that have teeth that are tiny, greatly reduced, and non-functional for eating prey.

Dense Flattened Teeth
Dense flattened teeth are used to crush prey like bivalves and crustaceans. These Sharks include nurse sharks and angel sharks. They are typically found at the bottom of the ocean floor because this is the habitat that their prey lives in. Their teeth are flat in order to easily crack open the shells their prey uses for protection.

Needle-like Teeth
Sharks with needle-like teeth commonly feed on small to medium fish and or other small sharks. Their teeth are especially effective for their prey because they can easily grip their slippery and narrow meals. Some examples are the blue shark and bull sharks. These sharks specifically use their teeth to feed on small prey like squid, flounder, stingrays, and even hammerhead sharks.

Pointed Lower Teeth and Triangular Upper Teeth
This combination of pointed lower teeth with triangular upper teeth are especially useful for cutting prey that consist of large mammals and fish. The combination of teeth entails serrated edges to cut the larger prey into smaller portions in order to easily swallow the pieces. The most famously known shark with these teeth is the Great White shark. They feed on animals such as sea lions, dolphins, other sharks, and even small whales.

Non-Functional Teeth
The teeth of plankton-feeders such as the basking shark and whale shark are greatly reduced and non-functional.[1] These sharks filter feed on prey by opening their mouths to let tiny organisms get sucked into their mouths without using their teeth at all.

Shark Teeth Research and Identification
Identification of most sharks are found through a combination of tooth counts and tooth shapes. Teeth can even lead to the identification of shark species like the requiem shark. The fossilized records of teeth helps illustrate evolutionary history, and isolated teeth are used to study and analyze specific linear measurements of the species. In order to identify teeth and specific information about the teeth, research can be done on a shark tooth. This research may differ to uncover many different aspects about the tooth itself, and the shark species. To collect information on basic-life history and get dispersal estimates of a shark tooth, molecular-based technology is very efficient. To further shark population studies, collection of mtDNA can be extracted from shark jaws and teeth. To study the caries-reducing effect in sharks, studies are done on the fluorine atoms that are bound covalently to calcium atoms in the teeth. Each tooth has a complex fluorapatite structure enameloid. In order to reduce effects of deterioration in the teeth, it is useful to sample only the surface of the enameloid of the tooth for this specific research. Studying and researching shark teeth betters our understandings of shark feeding behaviors, evolutionary changes, and mechanisms. This helps us to identify the teeth, and even the species.