Imagine having over 10,000 teeth that you need to take care of every day! Just think how much time you would spend on oral hygiene. Fortunately, humans have only 32 adult teeth, but there are many animals that have far more teeth.
Which animal do you think has the most teeth? Be prepared for a shock!
In our research for this week’s blog of Dental Center 4Smile, we discovered that the catfish is one of the animals with the highest number of teeth. With an impressive total of 9,280 teeth, we can say that it is the largest animal with such a high number of teeth.
What are catfish teeth like?
Catfish teeth are tiny and are packed together in the mouth in rows, one behind another. They use them to feed on other fish, small buds, and small animals. In general, they like to search for their prey at the bottom of rivers, among gravel.
However, the real shock is yet to come – the catfish is not the living creature with the most teeth. That title belongs to the snail!
Do snails have teeth?
Snails may seem like uninteresting creatures at first glance. They may be slow, but there are species of snails that can thrive in harsh conditions, paralyze prey, and reproduce sexually by shooting their partners with love darts.
If that’s not impressive enough, take a look inside a snail’s mouth if you ever get the chance: you will see a tongue and rows upon rows of sharp “teeth.” This tongue, with thousands of teeth – ranging from 1,000 to over 20,000 – is called a radula.
