Komodo Dragon's Orange Teeth Serve Practical Purpose

The Komodo dragon might be the closest thing to a living dinosaur, with its muscular tail, scaly skin, sturdy claws, and, it turns out, razor-sharp teeth unlike any seen before. The largest living lizard has curved, serrated teeth, similar to those of carnivorous dinosaurs, which help to rip apart the flesh of prey ranging from birds to water buffalo. But the Komodo also has "a striking and previously overlooked predatory adaptation," as researchers describe in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. A thin layer of iron coats the tips and serrations of a Komodo dragon's teeth. This protective layer, unseen in any other animal living or dead, makes the teeth extra hard and resistant to wear, preserving the razor-sharp edges, the Guardian reports.

Many reptiles have some amount of iron in their teeth. But the concentration is so strong in endangered Komodo dragons that their teeth are actually tinted orange. "It looks like someone took an orange Sharpie or a fine paintbrush and painted the tip of the cutting edges orange," lead study author Aaron LeBlanc, a lecturer in dental biosciences at King's College London, tells CNN. Researchers noticed the strange coloring in teeth held in museum collections. (You don't want to get too close to a living Komodo dragon's mouth, after all. Did we mention the venom?) The scientists then used advanced imaging and chemical and mechanical analytical techniques to study the teeth and compare them to those of other living and extinct reptiles.

The coating on Komodo teeth was most apparent and found to have been present when the teeth emerged from the gum. Without it, "the enamel on the cutting edges would wear away very quickly and the tooth would dull," LeBlanc tells CNN. Similar iron-rich coatings were observed in other species, but not to the point of being visible to the naked eye. "It looks like it could be a really overlooked but widespread feature of reptile teeth," LeBlanc says, per the Guardian. "Unfortunately, using the technology we have at the moment, we can't see whether fossilized dinosaur teeth had high levels of iron or not," LeBlanc notes in a release. However, evidence does suggest "some dinosaurs altered the structure of their dental enamel to maintain a sharp cutting edge." (More Komodo dragon stories.)