Contrary to what you might think, the animal with the most teeth is not a shark. Neither is it a lion or a crocodile. In fact, it’s an animal that you wouldn’t think of having any teeth at all. It lives in your back garden and, compared with some of the creatures that might spring to mind in answer to the question, is not the least bit threatening.
The answer is the snail. Despite having a mouth no bigger than a pinprick, snails have thousands of teeth lurking within.
But they’re not the same kind of teeth that humans and other animals have. They are microscopic ‘toothlets’ lining a tongue-like structure forming a ‘radula.’ Snails extend this through their food, using it like a file to patiently grate bits off and move them into the back of their mouths and down into their stomachs. The action wears down the teeth at the front of the radula and new ones are constantly being formed at the back, which gradually move forward to replace them.
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