Whale sharks have thousands of tiny teeth shielding their eyes

Whale sharks lack eyelids to shield their eyes from underwater hazards. Instead, researchers discovered that each eyeball is armored with approximately three thousand dermal denticles—the exact same miniature, tooth-like scales that cover their skin. These microscopic eye-teeth act like flexible chainmail over the cornea. Combined with their ability to pull their entire eyeball deep into the eye socket, whale sharks possess one of the most heavily armored visual systems in the ocean.

Sources

• Armored eyes of the whale shark: A first report on eyeball dermal denticlesjournals.plos.org ↗
• Whale sharkWikipedia ↗