What animal has the biggest teeth?

Factual Questions
1

My five year-old son’s constant barrage of science questions turned today to what animal has the biggest teeth. I’m thinking living animals here. I think tusks and baleen shouldn’t count. I would suppose Elephant teeth are the biggest, but I think my son is interested in sharp predator teeth. In this case I would guess the Sperm whale, but I don’t know. So what animal has the longest teeth?

2

Well, a narwhal is a predator and its tusk is reasonably sharp and technically a tooth. At a maximum length of something like 3 meters, it’s longer (though less massive) than a large elephant’s tusk.

Confining the discussion to teeth that are used as teeth, I agree that the sperm whale looks hard to beat. It is the largest true predator and consumes some of the largest prey.

3

An elephant’s tusks are not only the longest and heaviest teeth, but an elephant’s molars are also the longest and heaviest teeth that are used as teeth, being over a foot long (including the roots) and weighing 10 pounds.

Walrus tusks are also very long, and they actually are canine teeth, or fangs (and walruses are carnivores), although they are not used for biting. A narwhal’s tusk is longer, however.

If you insist on pointy predator-type teeth that are actually used for biting, I think the Sperm Whale is probably the answer.

4

Tusks are actually teeth?

5

Yes, they are.

6
      • Largest overall (heaviest?) is going to be some really big animal of course. Longest I would guess tigers maybe? Tigers get a lot bigger than other big cats.
        …
  • Largest proportionlately of any living creature would be the Wind Scorpion.
    …
  • Largest proportional teeth/mouth of any mammal I seem to remember is the clouded leopard – many sites point out that (proportionately) it has the largest teeth of any cat, but overall it is quite small.
    ~
7

The tusks of elephants are modified upper incisors, that of the narwhal is an upper left incisor, and those of walruses are canines.

8

Hippos have been known to occasionally stray from vegetarian diets, and their teeth can grow huge.