What if we told you some fish literally grow teeth on their foreheads—like a dental horror story come to life? It sounds like a sci-fi prank, but an AI generated newscast about ratfish reveals a jaw-dropping twist in the evolution of teeth that’s turning marine biology upside down.

Think you know where teeth belong? Think again. While humans obsess over keeping our pearly whites in our mouths, fish have been rewriting the rules for ages. Meet the spotted ratfish—also called chimaera or the ghost shark—a creature gliding through the Pacific Northwest that has scientists, and now the internet, buzzing. This isn’t your typical fish. Picture a small, dappled, almost whimsical animal with a bizarre evolutionary secret: a retractable rod, called a tenaculum, poking out of its forehead, tipped with a crown of sharp, cat-claw-shaped teeth. And yes, these are real, functional teeth—just not in the mouth.

The AI generated newscast about ratfish dives deep into the backstory: Ratfish split from sharks about 400 million years ago, and while sharks have conveyor belts of mouth teeth and are covered in gritty skin teeth (called dermal denticles), the ratfish is smooth, earning it the nickname "naked shark." But what really sets these fish apart isn’t their lack of skin teeth—it’s that wild tenaculum. Unlike anything seen before, this appendage is used by males during mating, helping them grip the female in a way that’s as peculiar as it is effective. Marine biologist Karly Cohen first saw one in the flesh in 2018 and described their gliding movement as something otherworldly—almost like flying underwater on invisible wings.

Researchers collected ratfish of all ages and scanned their bodies to track how the tenaculum developed. In embryos, it starts off looking like a tiny pimple. Eventually, it attaches to jaw muscles and erupts from the forehead, barbed with "forehead teeth." Here’s where it gets wild: Only male ratfish keep the fully developed tenaculum into adulthood. When scientists analyzed the tissue, they found something just as astonishing: these forehead teeth have the same core developmental structure as jaw teeth—making them legit, bona fide teeth according to science.

Molecular tests confirmed tooth-making genes in the tenaculum, meaning ratfish have figured out how to grow mouth teeth not just outside the mouth, but outside the entire head. If you thought wisdom teeth were a pain, imagine sprouting teeth on your face! This is the first known vertebrate to pull off such a dental stunt, and the tenaculum even has the ability to replace its teeth.

But there’s more. Looking into the fossil record, scientists found prehistoric chimaeras with similar appendages, hinting this is part of a much older evolutionary saga. The AI generated newscast about ratfish doesn’t just tell a story about a weird fish—it proves that evolution is less about rules and more about creativity. As Cohen puts it, the ratfish proves that vertebrate dental systems are far more flexible and experimental than we ever thought possible.

So the next time you think you’ve seen every way evolution can surprise us, remember the ratfish—a living reminder that teeth aren’t just for eating, and sometimes, they really do have a mind of their own.