The lingocode fish found in the Pacific Ocean lose their teeth every day. That too in about 20 counts. The sex codes, which are five feet long and weigh up to 36 kilograms, have about five hundred pointed needles.
They can also bark crustaceans, including crabs, all at once. But for so long it has been a mystery how they keep their teeth sharp. A new study published in the October issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B Journal shows that this feature is maintained by 3% of tooth loss per day. Teeth will germinate again in the fall.
The discovery was made by the Friday Harbor Laboratory at the University of Washington. About 20% of edible Pacific gender codes are fluorescent green or blue. The cause of the color difference is not yet clear.