Do tarpon have teeth?
13.September, 2009
I teach 4th grade and the kids in my class are having a dumb argument about tarpon fish. Do they have teeth? Some kids say yes and some kids say no. I don’t know anything about teeth so I thought I would ask here. Thanks so much for the help.
According to Sean Morey of the Florida Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department, the Tarpon fish have a superior mouth with the lower mandible (lower jaw) extending far beyond the gape. In their enormous mouths, tarpons have extremely small villiform (i.e., fine densely packed) teeth on their jaws, vomer, palatines, pterygoids, tongue, and skull base. Also, they have an elongated bony plate along their lower, upturned jaw. The plate is used to crush crustaceans and other prey that cannot be swallowed whole.
The juvenile tarpon are planktivous, while the adult tarpon are strictly carnivorous. Because of the minute teeth only, they usually swallow their prey whole.
They can be dangerous to humans, mainly during capture. They may have a shark attached to them, as the shark could be attacking them and the bait the same time an angler could be reeling them in. Also, they can be full of energy (just like some classroom kids..lol) and dangerously flop around if they are landed on a boat by the angler.
There is complete information with pictures on the website where I obtained this information.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/tarpon/tarpon.html
13.September, 2009 um 1:38 pm
I’m pretty sure they should have teeth… I mean, they are fish, aren’t they?
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13.September, 2009 um 1:44 pm
They have smaller teeth, but their mouth is really hard, which makes it hard for a hook to imbed itself. So yes, they have teeth.
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13.September, 2009 um 2:09 pm
If they do they should have fairly flat and small teeth.
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13.September, 2009 um 2:20 pm
No, They do not have teeth they have really large mouths.Small fish get sucked right in when they eat.
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13.September, 2009 um 2:27 pm
Here is a link to absolutely everything you ever needed to know about Tarpon. Scroll down to the ‘Biology’ section, in there is a subsection called ‘food habits’, and there is your answer.
Basically, yes they do have teeth, but they are called "minute".
References :
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/Descript/Tarpon/Tarpon.html
13.September, 2009 um 3:01 pm
most people would say yes those people would be wrong they do not have teeth.
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13.September, 2009 um 3:27 pm
According to Sean Morey of the Florida Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department, the Tarpon fish have a superior mouth with the lower mandible (lower jaw) extending far beyond the gape. In their enormous mouths, tarpons have extremely small villiform (i.e., fine densely packed) teeth on their jaws, vomer, palatines, pterygoids, tongue, and skull base. Also, they have an elongated bony plate along their lower, upturned jaw. The plate is used to crush crustaceans and other prey that cannot be swallowed whole.
The juvenile tarpon are planktivous, while the adult tarpon are strictly carnivorous. Because of the minute teeth only, they usually swallow their prey whole.
They can be dangerous to humans, mainly during capture. They may have a shark attached to them, as the shark could be attacking them and the bait the same time an angler could be reeling them in. Also, they can be full of energy (just like some classroom kids..lol) and dangerously flop around if they are landed on a boat by the angler.
There is complete information with pictures on the website where I obtained this information.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/tarpon/tarpon.html
References :
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/tarpon/tarpon.html
13.September, 2009 um 3:43 pm
If you teach 4th grade, why didn’t you Goggle "tarpon" instead of asking a numb-skull question like this on YA water-sports? Didn’t do much research in college, huh?
Now that I have vented my frustration, all of the nice people who provided you with links have good information.
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