00:03The world's largest shark just got even cooler.
00:07Scientists just discovered it literally has teeth on its eyeballs.
00:11Researchers from the Okinawa Churashima Research Center in Japan found whale sharks have rough structures on their eyes called dermal
00:18denticles.
00:19They may look like scales, but they're actually teeth.
00:22Dermal denticles make up shark skin, helping reduce friction so they can swim faster, but finding them covering eyeballs is
00:28pretty unusual.
00:29Researchers say since whale sharks don't have eyelids, they need special armor to protect their eyes.
00:34As if that wasn't weird enough, they also discovered whale sharks can retract their eyeballs into the socket.
00:40They say these eye-popping features are most likely exclusive to whale sharks.
00:44Researchers also say the shark's highly protective features stress the importance of vision for surveying their environment,
00:50contradicting the general belief that the species doesn't rely very much on vision.
00:54The findings were published in the journal Plus One.
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