Not a Shark or a Crocodile, This Is the World's Most Toothed

Owning up to 15,000 teeth, this is the world's most toothed creature. And certainly no one would have expected that this creature was a slug or a snail.

Key Facts About Micro Teeth

The ceiling is the most toothed creature in the world.

According to statistics, they have between 2,000 and 15,000 microscopic, chitin-like teeth, which make up the exoskeleton of arthropods. These teeth are called micro teeth by scientists.

The teeth of the slugs are distributed throughout the body.

Why Micro Teeth Matters

These microscopic teeth form hundreds of rows on muscle fibers called radula, an organ that resembles a human tongue. Thousands of shaved tongue-like teeth are used to thin out plants or even other animals to get food.

The Department of Engineering at Portsmouth University in Great Britain conducted a survey of these micro teeth and found them to be as strong-resistant as the super-hard materials that humans produced. The reason is that their mineral fibers are pressed into a very solid structure.

Images of snail teeth under a microscope.

According to scientists' estimates, the average durability of a tooth is about 5GPa, which is equivalent to the pressure to turn carbon into diamond under the Earth's crust.

For vertebrates, which creatures have the most teeth?

White sharks have 3,000 teeth, 50 times more than other sharks. Their teeth are triangular, serrated and very sharp. Each time they bite, their teeth can create a force of about three tons on each centimeter.

White sharks use teeth to bite prey so they can lose about 30,000 teeth throughout its life. But, every time a tooth falls off, another tooth will spring up instead.