For a long time now, I have been trying to get a photograph of the teeth of a sheepshead. Either I forget when one is caught or the fish is too small to really show the teeth. Why, may you ask, do I wish to get a picture of a fish's teeth? Well, it is simply this. Sheepsheads have weird teeth and I am all about weird things! What makes this fish's teeth odd is the fact that they have front teeth that look a lot like human teeth and that freaks folks out a bit when they first notice it. In a large fish, it appears that the fish is wearing dentures! But the weirdness does not end there! Once you open the mouth of the fish, you find a whole slew of other teeth just waiting to crush a finger! Just a thought here...keep your fingers out of a sheepshead's mouth! Well, it would probably be a good idea to keep the fingers out of any fish's mouth...so just do it. The entire inner part of the mouth and down the throat a bit are lined with flat teeth that are used to crush shells. The fish feeds a lot on shellfish and crabs so it needs a way to get past the hard part. The shell is cracked and the inner soft part is devoured while the shell remnants are discarded That should give you an idea of the power involved in the workings of this mouth! Those blunt front teeth are used to snip barnacles off of pilings and such.
Mark caught a sheepshead in the net this morning so it gave me the perfect opportunity to photograph the teeth. He was patient enough to hold the fish for me and even got the mouth open so I could attempt an "inside" shot. This was really awkward as the fish has fins that are sharp spines. Come to think about it, the sheepshead is a pretty well armed fish! Lots of stabby, pointy spines and a mouth full of shell-crushing teeth.
My learning experiences never end, here on the Bayou. There always seems to be a new discovery lurking in the shadows each and every day. This is good. The brain needs a new challenge now and again so it might as well be something to do with my own place. My finds are researched as far as I can go and then compared with what is on hand.
This morning, Mark and I were on the pier when I found a small tidbit of an oddity underfoot. My first instinct was to flip the unusual item back into the water since it was quite obvious that was where it originated but something told me to pick it up. I did and then the questions started. What was this thing? It was like nothing I had ever seen before...or was it? As I was holding the piece, several small "nuggets" fell off and rolled between the boards and into the water. Oops! I had intended on getting a photo of it intact. So much for that idea. After a bit of discussion, Mark and I had a tentative idea of what the thing was but I needed more information. That information proved to be difficult to come by, however. It was definitely some piece of bone from a fish...we knew that much!
The small piece of bone had dozens of tiny holes in it and in each hole was a "peg". It was a few of those "pegs" that rolled out as I handled the piece. Our idea of this being "teeth" from a catfish seems to be correct although I could not find any definitive photos of them. The hardhead catfish have "plates" with small rounded teeth. These plates are on the roof of their mouth. The fish do not have sharp teeth like other fish which is why I have never thought about it. For some reason, I assumed that they had no teeth whatsoever and perhaps just either swallowed their food whole or maybe mashed it. The mashing is not too far off from reality as these teeth are small and rounded. We figured that the bone came from one of the catfish that we used as crab bait. The crabs eat all of the flesh and leave behind the bones. Emptying the bait box, we obviously dropped the small shard onto the pier and thus began our mystery! So...now we know or, at least, maybe we do. I will assume this is correct until I find evidence that says otherwise. Oh, the things I find!
