Giant prehistoric salmon had tusk-like teeth for defence: study

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The artwork and publicity materials showcasing a giant salmon that lived five million years ago were ready to go to promote a new exhibit, when the discovery of two fossilized skulls immediately changed what researchers knew about the fish.

A spike-tooth Salmon fossil is shown on display at the University of Oregon in this handout image. About five million years ago, the largest salmon known to have lived migrated through the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest, and a new paper uses revelations from fossil discoveries to reimagine and rename the great fish. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-University of Oregon *MANDATORY CREDIT *

“There were these two skulls staring at me with sideways teeth,” says Davis, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences at the university.“That was definitely a surprising moment,” says Davis, who serves as director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the university's Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

It says the salmon used the tusk-like spikes for building nests to spawn, and as defence mechanisms against predators and other salmon. Another co-author, Brian Sidlauskas, says a fish the size of the spike-toothed salmon must have been targeted by predators such as killer whales or sharks. “That's part of our reason for hypothesizing that this tooth is multi-functional … It could easily be for digging out nests,” he says.

 

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