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They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws. At the other extreme are the narwhals with their single long tusks and the almost toothless beaked whales with tusk-like teeth only in males. [20] In most beaked whales the teeth are seen to erupt in the lower jaw, and primarily occurs at the males sexual maturity. [21]
Odontocetes, such as the sperm whale, possess teeth with cementum cells overlying dentine cells. Unlike human teeth, which are composed mostly of enamel on the portion of the tooth outside of the gum, whale teeth have cementum outside the gum. Only in larger whales, where the cementum is worn away on the tip of the tooth, does enamel show.
The pygmy right whale shares several characteristics with the right whales, with the exception of having a dorsal fin. Also, pygmy right whales' heads are no more than one quarter the size of their bodies, whereas the right whales' heads are about one-third the size of their bodies. [11] The pygmy right whale is the only extant member of its ...
The common name was chosen because the part of the tooth that protrudes from the gums (unlike the strap-like teeth of strap-toothed whales) has a shape similar to the tip of a flensing spade as used by 19th-century whalers. Despite the rather similar dentition, the spade-toothed whale and strap-toothed whale seem to be only distantly related.
Large sperm whale teeth of up to around ~20 cm (8 in) in length are common in Hondeklip Bay, indicating a high presence of large sperm whales like Livyatan in the area. The locality has also a high presence of sharks indicated by a large abundance of shark teeth; however, most of these teeth have not been identified.
The sperm whale has 18 to 26 teeth on each side of its lower jaw which fit into sockets in the upper jaw. [56] The teeth are cone-shaped and weigh up to 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) each. [57] The teeth are functional, but do not appear to be necessary for capturing or eating squid, as well-fed animals have been found without teeth or even with deformed ...
Their teeth are the most evident ancestral feature. At this time in history other toothed whales were evolving simple conical teeth while Squalodontidae retained their primitive dentition that their ancestors (the archaeocetes) had developed. [5] Today living odontocetes have little variation in their teeth.
They were traditionally differentiated by the length of the pectoral flippers relative to total body length and the number of teeth. [7] The long-finned pilot whale was thought to have 9–12 teeth in each row and flippers one-fifth of total body length, compared to the short-finned pilot whale with its 7–9 teeth in each row and flippers one ...