[Animals]What caused this massive megalodon’s mega-toothache?

[INTOXICADOS]

The enormous, extinct shark megalodon dominated the seas millions of years ago, but even this fearsome ocean carnivore wasn't immune to tooth trouble. 

Recent analysis of a megalodon (Otodus megalodon) tooth with a rare abnormality — a groove all the way down the middle — hints that the dental deformity may trace its roots to an injury to the giant shark's jaw, perhaps caused by prey that fought back. In an illustration showing one possible encounter, a fish pierces the pursuing predator's jaw with its sharp bill, which may have set the stage for the megalodon growing a split tooth. 

Another possibility is that the big shark was impaled by a spine from a stingray, scientists wrote in a new study.

In humans and other mammals, genetic factors, disease or injury can sometimes affect tooth buds and cause a dental abnormality known as "double tooth pathology," in which a single tooth grows with a split running lengthwise down the center, the study authors wrote. Such teeth can represent two tooth buds that combined to form one tooth, a process known as fusion, or a single tooth bud that divided, known as gemination. However, little is known about this pathology in sharks. 

For the study, researchers analyzed a 4-inch (10-centimeters) long split megalodon tooth alongside split fossil teeth from other sharks, to determine what may have caused the deformities. The scientists concluded that a traumatic injury was the most likely cause of the prehistoric split teeth, and the encounter that damaged the megalodon tooth may have affected how the shark hunted and fed.

 

link: https://www.livescience.com/megalodon-toothache