Fish with human-looking teeth is creeping people out after capture off Outer Banks
A fish with human-looking teeth is startling some people after it was caught off the Outer Banks.
Jennette’s Pier in North Carolina said Nathan Martin reeled in a 9-pound fish that looks like it’s wearing dentures. A photo shows the aquatic animal, called a sheepshead, had teeth on the bottom and top of its mouth.
Martin said he was out fishing with his twin brother on Monday when he came face-to-face with a “mouth full of teeth.” He’s a regular at the pier and went out in hopes of catching sheepshead.
“It’s a very good fight when you’re fighting on the line, it’s a really good catch, and it tastes very good,” he told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
“#bigteethbigtimes,” Jennette’s Pier, a landmark that juts 1,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean, wrote Tuesday on Facebook.
The post from the fishing destination in Nags Head surprised many social media users and left others creeped out.
“Omg that’s crazy I would drop and run,” one person commented on the photo.
“Nah,” another Facebook user wrote. “I’m not that hungry, thanks.”
Other social media users found some humor in the catch, even going as far as recommending a dentist.
“I know a good Dentist on the Island,” one person wrote.
Another commented: “Who’s missing their dentures?”
It turns out, the sheepshead’s teeth allow them to be omnivores, just like humans, according to a Scientific American blog post from 2013. The fish can be eaten and weigh between 5 and 15 pounds.
“They are generally found year-round in North Carolina’s coastal waters ranging from inshore brackish waters to offshore rocky bottom,” the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality said on its website.
This story was originally published August 4, 2021 at 12:32 PM with the headline "Fish with human-looking teeth is creeping people out after capture off Outer Banks."
