![]() Can you really tell a dolphin’s age by looking at its teeth? This “raking” isn’t meant to be damaging – it’s not biting and it doesn’t tear into the other dolphin’s flesh. Dolphins of almost all types live in pods of a dozen or so members and they do have a rather strict hierarchy – the older and more experienced members typically lead while the younger ones follow.Īs you’d expect, younger dolphins occasionally need to be “reminded” of their place in the hierarchy, so, an older dolphin does this by dragging some of their teeth on the skin of their less-than-obedient pod member. It’s what some dolphins do to each other when they want to establish dominance. What is dolphin “raking”?ĭolphins do have one additional use for their teeth and that’s a practice called “ raking”. In those cases, they don’t use their teeth merely to grip their prey and suck it in their mouths but they actually use their teeth to tear pieces off the victim and eat them bit by bit.Īside from some such exceptions, however, the vast majority of dolphins go after a wider variety of prey and have the same type of teeth that they use in the same way. Larger dolphins like the orca, on the other hand, go almost exclusively after larger prey such as seals and penguins. That’s why these are among the very few heterodont dolphins that have a second type of tooth–flatter molar-like teeth at the back of their mouths that they use to break the shells of their prey. On the other hand, the Amazon River dolphin specializes in eating crabs and turtles in addition to fish. For example, the Risso’s favorite food is squids which is why these dolphins only have 4 to 14 teeth in their mouths – they don’t need more than that. That said, different species of dolphin have their preferences. They can eat a wide variety of fish, squid, octopus, krill, and even penguins and seals if we’re talking about orcas, the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. What do dolphins eat?Īs the highly adaptable cetaceans they are, dolphins have pretty adaptable diets. Whether they are among the dolphin species that roam the largest freshwater rivers or they are oceanic dolphins spending their whole lifetime somewhere between the coast of New England in the Western North Atlantic and the southernmost edges of the Indian and Pacific Oceans – almost all of them have the same simple yet effective hunting technique that works versus a wide variety of prey items thanks to their spade-shaped fang-like dolphin teeth. This singular purpose of dolphins’ teeth is exactly why dolphins are homodonts. Instead, they just use their teeth to grip their slipper prey between their upper and lower jaws and then just swallow their prey whole. These marine mammals don’t chew and often don’t even try to kill their prey with their teeth. Most of these don’t apply to dolphins, however. Most animals use their teeth for a variety of reasons – to grip their prey, to suffocate it or sever key blood vessels, to tear flesh, to chew, to graze, to ruminate cud, to break bones or hard shells, as well as for self-defense, for dueling, or even as tools. This can seem like a silly question but it isn’t, not really. ![]() The widest and most accurate range would be between 4 and 268 teeth but most dolphins are somewhere in the 100 to 200 range. So, as you can see, there is no one answer to the question “How many teeth do dolphins have?”, at least not an exact one. In contrast, the vast majority of other mammals, including humans are heterodonts – they have various different types of teeth such as canines, incisors, molars, and premolars. This makes most dolphins homodonts – animals with only one type of teeth. In fact, for most of them, their teeth serve only one major purpose – to grip onto their slippery prey while the dolphins swallow it. That’s because dolphins’ teeth aren’t as multi-functional as other animals’ teeth. What’s even more curious is that dolphins have differing numbers of teeth even among the same species. About 30 of those ~40 species are oceanic dolphins belonging to the Delphinidae family whereas the rest are members of the Platanistidae, Iniidae, and Pontoporiidae river dolphin families.īetween all these dolphins, you’ll encounter some with several dozen teeth, some with more than 200 teeth, and some with just a dozen or so teeth. For starters, there are about 40 different dolphin species in the world, each with a different number of teeth. When looking into how many teeth a dolphin have, however, you’ll likely see many different numbers. Dolphins are odontocetes or toothed cetaceans just like some whales such as beaked whales, sperm whales, as well as porpoises. Unlike their cousins, the whales, all dolphins have teeth.
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