Look at the damaged tooth of an ancient shark

Scientists do not yet know where the deformity came from: was it congenital or related to the type of diet. New

The work could give paleontologists more information about the developmental processes associated with dental damage in ancient sharks, as well as their diet.

This is an anomaly calledpathology of a double tooth, with it one tooth seems to be split. There are several possible causes: during development, two tooth buds may merge into one, or one tooth bud may split into two (a process called hemination). Gemination and fusion can be caused by disease, genetics, or physical damage to the tooth germ.

Scientists do not have much data on the pathologies of double teeth in ancient species of sharks, said Harrison Miller, author of the article.

Researchers studied three unusual teeth:one 10 cm from O. megalodon, a predator the size of a school bus that lived during the Miocene and early Pliocene periods (11 to 3.7 million years ago). And also two teeth from Carcharhinus leucas, this species is much smaller and lives in the seas even today.

The authors noted that such pathologies exist in the teeth of modern sharks, so they believe that such a tooth was formed due to trauma.

Read more:

The monster at the center of our Galaxy: look at the photo of a black hole in the Milky Way

American satellite "saw" an unusual message from Earth

Published video from the rocket, which was launched from an experimental accelerator