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Wide-eyed prehistoric shark hid its sharpest teeth in nightmare jaws - Livescience.com
Nov 23, 2020 1 min, 9 secs

Imagine you're a fish swimming through the ocean millions of years ago, when a shark lunges at you, gaping its mouth to bite.

The horror of your predicament increases as the predator's lower jaw also stretches downward on both sides, so that newer, sharper teeth that were previously lying flat along the side of the jaw now curve up.

The previously undescribed species, dubbed Ferromirum oukherbouchi, had a jaw that rotated inward when the mouth was closed, and outward when the mouth was open.

Unlike modern sharks, in which worn-down teeth are constantly displaced by new teeth, this shark sprouted its newer teeth in a row on the inside of the jaw, next to the older teeth.

When the shark opened its mouth, cartilage at the back of the jaw flexed so that the sides of the jaw "folded" down and newer teeth rotated upward, allowing the shark to bite into its prey with as many teeth as possible, according to a new study.

"Through this rotation, the younger, larger and sharper teeth, which usually pointed toward the inside of the mouth, were brought into an upright position.

When the shark's jaw closed, sea water rushed into its mouth to push the prey down toward the throat.

At the same time, the closing jaw rotated the teeth inward to immobilize and trap the shark's meal, Frey said in a statement.

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