A fishy thank you to everyone

Jul 14, 2016

A fishy thank you to everyoneIt looks as if we have reached the target and i with to offer by fullest thanks to everyone who has helped out. Chimaeras are not the prettiest of fish i grant you, and my lab freezer will never smell the same again, but they are fascinating and I think we will be able to delve deep into the questions of why teeth and what are teeth anyway. 
Here is a CT scan image of the upper jaws of an adult spook fish. This shows really nicely the 2 pairs of tooth plates in the upper jaw, and within these the raised areas of hard tissue surrounded by softer matrix.

Moya Meredith Smith and Jürgen like this.

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Moya Meredith Smith

Yes great picture I will ask Brett to put in DB for me to look at.

Jul 14, 20160

About This Project

Tooth plates in chimaeras and their relationship to teeth in sharks

Birkbeck College, London and Natural History Museum, London

The chimaeras (ghost sharks and spookfish) are a group of often deep sea fishes related to the sharks and rays. Unlike sharks, chimaeras have large, continuously growing tooth plates. These tooth plates have a very different structure to the teeth of sharks, or indeed any other fish. Within the teeth are sheets, rods and 'beads' of hard material that forms the cutting and biting surfaces. We shall be investigating the structure and development of these teeth and relating it to teeth of sharks.