Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-09
HOW FISH EAT,
Interesting Things for the Boys and Girls
to Know


The sea uichin has FIVE teeth in FIVE
laws-one IN each jaw-all the five i'm
medlately surrounding the stomach. The
Jaws have peculiar centralized motion.
all turning inward and downward, so that
they also act as feeders.
Snalls have teeth in their tongues. hum
dreds of them, but, as if these were not
enough, some have them also in their
stomach
The cutie, fish, which among other
strange things always walks with its
head downward, does not chew its food at
all, out mastlcates 1t with its eizzard.
1he ray, Or skate, has mouth set trans
versely around its head, the jaws working
With rolling motion like TWO hands set
back to back. In the jaws are three rows
OF hat teeth, set like a mosaic pavement,
and between these rolling jaws the fish
brushes oysters and other mollusks, like so
many nuts
The carp's teeth are set back on the
pharyuy, so that it may be literally said to
masticate its food in its throat. The carp,
too, is about the only cud-chewing fish, the
coarseley food being forced up to these
throat. teeth for complete mastication
Some fishes are absolutely toothless, like
the sucker and the hamprey; others again
have hundreds and hundreds of teeth,
sometimes so many that they cover all
parts of the mouth.
The great Greenland whale has no
teeth, its balen plates, or whaIebone. TAX
ing their place. Among the center of the
palate runs strong ridge and on each
side of this there IS wide depression
along which the plates are inserted. These
ionC and Hat harcri,1rr
placed around the mouth with their sides
parallel and near each other. The base
and outer edge of the plates are of solid
whalebone, but the inner edges are firing
ed, filling up the interior of the mouth
and acting as a strainer for the food,
which consists of the small swimming
mullusks and meduse or jelly-fshes.
While the Greenland whale has 10 teeth,
the sperm whale has them in great quaint
tiles on the lower jaw, and uses them, too,
when occasion requires. On the. other
hand the narwhal very seldom develops
more than one, the left upper canine. 1t
max up for the lack of numbers by the
extraordinary growth attained by this one
tooth. ltgrows out and right forward, on
line with the body, until it becomes
veritable tusk, sometimes reaching the
length of ten feet
The river dolphin of South America has
222 teeth.
The sturgeon is toothless, and draws in
its food by suction, but the sharks has
hundreds of teeth set In rows that some-
times number ten.
HOLSTERS and crabs masticate their food
with their horny jaws, and they have also
sets of teeth in their stomach, where they
complete the work of chewing.
There is a particular kind of crab call
ed the king or horseshoe crab, which chews
its food with its legs. This is an actual
fact, the little animal grinding its morsels
between It's tights before it passes them
over to its mouth.
The jelley-fsh absorbs its food by wrap
ping itself around the object which it
seeks 70 make its own.
The star-fsh is even more accommodating.
Fastening to the body it wishes to feed on,
it turns its stomach inside out and en-
wraps its prey with this useful organ.