12,000 Shark Teeth Found During Aquarium Refurbishment

Sharks shed their teeth frequently, so it wasn’t surprising to find some teeth, but Sea Life Centre staff were still taken aback by the sheer number of teeth they ended up with. 

Said Blackpool Sea Life senior aquarist Scott Blacker, “We always found a few teeth whenever we dived in the tank, but we were all astounded by just how many were lurking in every handful of gravel. It's a delicate job sorting them out, because they tend to be the same colour as the gravel and easy to overlook.”

Dr. Ivan Sansom, a senior lecturer at Birmingham University, said, “We have teeth from every shark species that lived in the tank, including lots of sand tiger teeth, a species that hasn't featured in the display for more than eight years. … The biggest number we have are from black-tipped reef sharks, but that's hardly surprising, since this species sheds a whole row of more than 40 teeth every month.”

The shark teeth aren’t just interesting garbage. The massive cache of teeth will be used as part of scientific research into global warming, because the teeth contain clues about changing ocean temperatures.

University of Birmingham scientists have discovered a technique for measuring the temperatures in which sharks live, and it’s based on oxygen atoms found in discarded teeth. With this new bonanza of shark teeth from Blackpool, they hope to perfect the technique and expand their research.

Knowledge of changing ocean temperatures can give scientists insight into the rising and falling populations among marine species over time, as well as evolutionary changes from as far back as prehistory. “The ultimate aim is to better understand how cooling waters in prehistoric times drove evolutionary change while warming waters led to extinctions,” Dr. Sansom said. “Current evidence from the past suggests we are going to see mass extinctions as our own oceans warm up.”