“Shapeshifting vampire demon anchovy”

Published May 14, 2020

Do you need more than that headline to pique your curiosity? How about the fact that it sported a single saber tooth on top and razor fangs on the bottom? They named it “Monosmilus chureloides” which roughly translates to “single knife Churel,” and it’s a newly discovered ancient fish (from about 45 million years ago) that lived where Pakistan is today. Churel? Yeah, that would be a mythical “ghost of an unpurified living thing” from southeast Asian folklore. But this fish was real.

[It] had 16 fang-like curved teeth on its lower jaw that were small in the back and “progressively larger towards the front.” The longest fang was 0.8 inches (2 cm), or about 20% the length of the whole head.

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