Shark Teeth

Wednesday I casually mentioned that my latest project has been educational. This post is about more than I thought there was to know about shark's teeth.

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Pretty much everyone knows that sharks shed their teeth, but I didn't know that they had no roots to hold them in or that they may last as little as 24 hours! (Some sharks don't shed teeth, they shed their entire jaw!)

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They have 40 or more teeth in each jaw. Behind the functional rows or teeth are seven other rows of teeth developing into mature dentures to replace teeth as they are shed or lost.

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Pretty much everyone knows that a shark skeleton is made of cartilage which doesn't last like bone, so with few exceptions the only shark fossils available to us are teeth. Shark teeth are the most numerous fossils and on a side note, Shark Teeth are the Official Fossil of the State of Georgia.

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I'm making my project with fossilized teeth because 'new' teeth on the market are provided by shark hunters and professional fishermen. The teeth may be a simple by-product of shark meat, which would be fine, but the thought that some shark was killed for its teeth icks me out and I don't want to risk it. So fossil teeth it is! A by-product of that is supporting the men and women who dive for a living, supporting their habit by selling shark teeth. How cool is that?
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Teeth are found in the sea of course, but also in rivers, mines and dig sites and have been used as tools and beads for centuries. Location of origin has a bearing on the rarity and thus value of a tooth.

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Teeth are available in many sizes. They're measured on the slant and the biggest one on record is over 7 inches (18cm)! Wow! Of course, the bigger the tooth the pricier. Collectors spend hundreds of dollars on a single tooth and some take teeth collecting trips. The bigger the tooth the bigger the shark as well. Some estimate an inch of tooth to 10 feet (3m) of shark so a one inch tooth comes from a 10 foot shark, a 7 inch tooth comes from a 70 foot (21m) shark-- wow! (Great Whites max out at about 25 feet [7.5m])
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Fossil teeth, as you see, can be fabulously gorgeous and many different colors. The colors are determined by the color of sediment in which the teeth are is buried, because they absorb mineral content from that sediment. The rarer the color the more expensive the tooth. Gem polishing is great for jewelry, but not so awesome for a collector, because the best teeth are untouched and nice enough to stay that way.

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Another interesting thing, that may seem obvious to some but wasn't to me, different species of shark have different shaped teeth. An expert can look at a tooth and at least narrow down the species it came from.

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I don't think I've been bitten by the tooth collecting bug exactly, but I think it would be something I'd enjoy. It was so interesting to discover all of this as I shopped for the pieces to create this project.

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I can tell you that this is my favorite kind of project, the kind of project that teaches me something. And this one has taught me much before I've even started it!