“Teeth and hair are the features of a person” – this saying has perhaps become too familiar to us. However, no one would have thought that sometimes even fish could apply this reasoning. A case in point is the man in the story below, Mark Byatt, whose decision to take his pet fish for surgery has left the online community buzzing, all because of one reason: its teeth are too overgrown.
According to Byatt, he initially didn’t pay much attention to this issue. It wasn’t until Goldie – the 5-year-old fish – frequently displayed a rather goofy smile and showed no interest in food, that the situation began to concern him. The fish was visibly losing weight. The main reason stemmed from Goldie’s teeth growing in an unexpected manner, resembling the overgrown teeth of a human.
Without much hesitation, the 64-year-old man promptly took Goldie to the vet. Here, according to the doctors, Goldie’s lack of appetite or possibly being outcompeted for food by other fish meant that its teeth had no chance to be worn down and had grown excessively, obstructing its ability to eat in the future. Thus, the doctors had to decide to anesthetize Goldie and trim its teeth. The method of anesthesia surprised the online community when a dose of anesthetic was poured into Goldie’s tank, and soon enough, the fish became lethargic and drowsy.
In the end, everything went well. The surgery lasted less than an hour, and Goldie can now eat freely again. Truly, the story of performing surgery to trim a fish’s overgrown teeth is quite bizarre and has left the online community in awe of its uniqueness.