Saber Toothed Anchovy

 Yes, I've decided to do a string of saber toothed critters. And no, you didn't read that wrong. 

About 45 million years ago, saber toothed anchovies wandered the ocean. These fish had fangs on their bottom jaw and one large 'saber tooth' on their top jaw. The fish's teeth are so weird that one guy named the species 'Monosmilus chureloides', which translates to 'single knife churel'. That 'Churel' is where the shapeshifting vampire demon part of the Live Science article got it's name. 

These fish come in two different types. The first is only about a foot long and was found in Belgium in 1946. The second is 3 feet long and was found in Pakistan. That fish has 16 teeth on it's lower jaw, getting progressively bigger closer to the front, with the largest fang being long enough to be 20% of the height of the fish's head. The upper jaw has the large tooth that is known as the saber tooth. They're not sure how these teeth were useful since none of the fish that are still living have teeth even similar. Because of the similarity of their teeth, it's assumed they're related, but more importantly, the anatomical study puts them as ancestors to modern anchovies. Please take a moment to imagine how different that can of anchovies would be if they were still 3 feet long and had so many teeth. 

This artist's rendition is in most of the articles below, and it's by Joschua Knüppe. 

One of the things that can sometimes be a bit weird though, is that the anchovies we know, and put on pizza, probably already existed when their saber toothed cousins were on the scene. The saber toothed variety died out, but the smaller ones that were plankton eaters managed to survive. Because we only have two fossils of these strange fish, we can't be sure how well they fared 50 million years ago, because they could have just not fossilized well and could have been around for a long time. Since they're in the water and there are larger predators, it's entirely possible the water scattered any bones, or a predator could have eaten them, or they just might not have had many chances to be fossilized instead of just rotting. 

Either way, these are some interesting fish, and I wish we could know more about them, but history that long ago is hard because there isn't always much evidence of things. 

One last thing I want to say before I turn you over to my sources so you can learn more yourself if you want to, or not if you don't. My dad loves football (American, NFL, not soccer/FIFA), and I really hate it. I just do. He was watching a game once with the University of Michigan playing and I told him that I'll support them because they're the ones that discovered, or at least studied, the saber toothed anchovy, and that's worth supporting them for. I've got a pretty similar reason to support the University of Oregon, but that'll be tomorrow. 

Have fun, be curious, and I hope you enjoyed learning about all this. 

Sources:

Live Science: Ancient 'shapeshifting vampire demon' anchovy had saber tooth and fangs

University Of Michigan-- Saber Toothed Anchovies

CNN Saber Toothed Anchovies

Science News Saber Toothed Anchovy

Science News Explores- Saber Toothed Anchovy

Smithsonian-- Saber Toothed Anchovies