An unusual fish was caught by a fisherman in Florida that appears to have a set of human-like teeth. The weird fish was caught by Paul Lore near Melbourne in the US state of Florida. Paul was shocked to find the unusual creature with human-like teeth.
After reeling it out, Paul, from Honolulu in Hawaii, was fascinated by the zebra pattern on the body but he got the surprise of his life when he opened the fish’s mouth.
Talking to LADbible, he shares it had a zebra pattern of coloring and its body was like a snapper-type fish, describing it as very compact but meaty. He explained further that the fish hadrows of human-like teeth like a shark has two or three rows of teeth with strong bite power which is not enough to take a finger but make you never go near the teeth again.
He further noted it is one of the weirdest fish he has encountered, based on the appearance, but not the first one of its kind.
What Paul has come across is a Sheepshead, a marine fish with several rows of stubby teeth-- only the frontal ones resemble human teeth-- which is used to brush the shells of prey. These are pretty common around the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the USA.
Explaining why it has human-like teeth, Paul said they use these teeth to break barnacles, clamshells and crab shells which come out of their grills like a filter. The fish is known as ‘poor man’s crab’ around his parts, he said, because they are easy to catch and taste like crab meat.
He added these fishes are strong swimmers and as they are hooked, even the small ones swim sideways with a lot of force, almost like a bigger fish.
The sheepshead’s teeth start to grow when they are 4.5 millimetres long and over the course of their life, it can grow to be 76 cm long. There is a bay named Sheepshead Bay in New York City, as these are well known around that particular part of the US.
Paul released the creature back into the wild.