Piranhas are fish you do not want to mess with—they deliver a powerful bite and their teeth can rip right through the flesh of their prey. A new study recently showed how these creatures swap out their old pearly whites and it is an interesting process.
Many years ago, scientists found that piranhas loose all of the teeth on one side of their mouth at the same time and regrow them to replace old teeth with a brand new set. However, no museum specimens or documentation has detected that this theory is true.
Scanning electron microscopy imaging shows interlocking piranha teeth. (Photo Credit: Frances Irish / Moravian College)
Now, a team led by the University of Washington has confirmed that piranhas do lose and regrow all the teeth on one side of their face on numerous occasions. With the help of CT scans, the team analyzed these creatures’ teeth and shared their findings in the journal Evolution and Development.
“The teeth form a solid battery that is locked together, and they are all lost at once on one side of the face. The new teeth wear the old ones as ‘hats’ until they are ready to erupt,” said Adam Summers, senior author of the study. “So, piranhas are never toothless even though they are constantly replacing dull teeth with brand new sharp ones.”
Leveraging evolutionary history, the biomechanical properties of fish, and imaging technologies, the team was able to determine how piranhas and their plant-eating cousins, pacus, lose and swap out their pearly whites. With different CT scans, the team was able to study the contours and topography of teeth of many fish specimens and they found out that the teeth on each side formed two strong blocks and interlocked together.
A CT-scanned image of the piranha ‘Serrasalmus medinai.’ (Photo Credit: University of Washington)
“With interlocking teeth, the fish go from having one sharp tooth that can crack a nut or cut through flesh to a whole battery of teeth,” said Karly Cohen, a co-author of the study. “Among piranhas and pacus, there’s a lot of diversity in how the teeth lock together, and it seems to relate to how the teeth are being used.”
By CT-scanning 93 specimens of 40 different species, staining tissues of the fish to see how teeth form, and incorporating hereditary information, the team was able to get a sense of what the process was like for these creatures to replace their teeth.
Results showed a distinct tooth replacement pattern in almost every piranha and pacu they studied. Imaging detected that there were rows of teeth that poked to the surface underneath each fish’s existing set of teeth. So, when it comes to pearly whites, piranhas would rather take on a new set and not have one broken tooth disrupt their feeding frenzies.
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