If there was a tooth fairy in the Cretaceous, dinosaurs kept it busy. Unlike humans, which lose just one set of teeth over a lifetime, dinosaurs often lost tens or even hundreds of sets.

Plant-eating dinosaurs had to chew lots of tough material to sustain their large bodies, causing them to frequently replace their teeth. But researchers were surprised to discover fossil evidence recently that showed that a carnivorous dinosaur — the only known cannibal — replaced its chompers even more frequently than some herbivores. The dinosaur’s propensity for chewing on the bones of its prey might have even contributed to its rapid tooth replacement rate, scientists hypothesized. These results were published late last month in the journal PLoS One.

The research centered on several meat-eating dinosaurs, but Majungasaurus crenatissimus was really the star of carnivorous dinosaur dentition. This roughly 20-foot-long apex predator, which lived on what is now Madagascar about 70 million years ago, left behind a particularly plentiful fossil record. Several complete skeletons, hundreds of fragmentary skeletons and tens of thousands of shed teeth have been found.

“That’s pretty unheard-of,” said Michael D. D’Emic, a vertebrate paleontologist at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, who led the study.