Edestus

Edestus vorax · Edestus was a huge extinct predatory fish with curved, tooth-studded blades in its jaws, living in the Late Carboniferous seas of the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States.

It lived about 313 to 307 million years ago.

Edestus
Photo: Entelognathus, CC BY-SA 4.0
Edestus
Photo: Creator: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0
Edestus
Photo: Gyik Toma (Tommy the paleobear) from Romania, CC BY 2.0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassChondrichthyes
OrderEugeneodontida
FamilyEdestidae
GenusEdestus
SpeciesEdestus vorax

Where its fossils were found

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma and other US states, England, and the area around Moscow in Russia.

Fun facts

  • The biggest species, E. heinrichi, may have reached over 6.7 metres (22 feet), about the size of the largest great white shark.
  • Edestus had only a single row of teeth down the middle of each jaw, which is why it is sometimes nicknamed the "scissor tooth shark".
  • Its teeth were made in the back of the jaw blade and slowly moved forward, until they were ejected at the front.
  • Over its lifetime, each tooth blade of Edestus could have grown up to 40 teeth.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).