Corn Katherine A, Farina Stacy C, Brash Jeffrey, Summers Adam P
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , Cornell University , Ithaca, NY , USA.
Museum of Comparative Zoology , Harvard University , Cambridge, MA , USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2016 Aug 10;3(8):160141. doi: 10.1098/rsos.160141. eCollection 2016 Aug.
The shape of shark teeth varies among species, but traditional testing protocols have revealed no predictive relationship between shark tooth morphology and performance. We developed a dynamic testing device to quantify cutting performance of teeth. We mimicked head-shaking behaviour in feeding large sharks by attaching teeth to the blade of a reciprocating power saw fixed in a custom-built frame. We tested three tooth types at biologically relevant speeds and found differences in tooth cutting ability and wear. Teeth from the bluntnose sixgill () showed poor cutting ability compared with tiger (), sandbar () and silky () sharks, but they also showed no wear with repeated use. Some shark teeth are very sharp at the expense of quickly dulling, while others are less sharp but dull more slowly. This demonstrates that dynamic testing is vital to understanding the performance of shark teeth.
鲨鱼牙齿的形状因物种而异，但传统的测试方案并未揭示鲨鱼牙齿形态与性能之间的预测关系。我们开发了一种动态测试装置来量化牙齿的切割性能。我们通过将牙齿附着在固定在定制框架中的往复式电锯刀片上，模拟大型鲨鱼进食时的摇头行为。我们以与生物学相关的速度测试了三种牙齿类型，发现了牙齿切割能力和磨损方面的差异。与虎鲨、沙虎鲨和丝鲨相比，六鳃鲨的牙齿切割能力较差，但反复使用后也没有磨损。一些鲨鱼牙齿非常锋利，但代价是很快变钝，而另一些则没那么锋利，但变钝得更慢。这表明动态测试对于理解鲨鱼牙齿的性能至关重要。
