A TALENTED Bolton artist teamed up with a London aquarium to create sculptures — out of razor-sharp sharks' teeth.

Renowned miniature sculpture artist Hedley Wiggan, of Tonge Moor Road, Tonge Moor, spent two weeks working until the early hours of the morning to painstakingly craft seven animals from the 2cm teeth.

The rare giant green sea turtle, seahorse, cownose ray, octopus, gentoo penguin, tropical yellow tang fish and brown shark — all carefully recreated in minute detail — are on display at the Sea Life London Aquarium.

Mr Wiggan, aged 49, said: "When the aquarium approached me, I was excited to have the opportunity to sculpt with such an unusual material.

“I’ve created people from pencil leads and fairies from cocktail sticks but shark teeth are very delicate so a real challenge, even for me."

The father-of-one added: "It was a bit of a tight schedule.

"It was quite tough, I had to practice because they were that small and the teeth were that sharp, I had to stick them to putty — they were razor sharp."

Sharks continually and naturally shed their teeth and they were retrieved from the tanks at the visitor attraction for Mr Wiggan to work on.

The aquarium has been holding shark-focused activities, in partnership with the Shark Trust, to educate guests on the growing dangers sharks face in the wild, from overfishing to finning and habitat destruction which all seriously impact on global shark populations.

Rebecca Carter, Sea Life London Aquarium’s Conservation and education manager, said: "We work tirelessly to educate our guests on the plight of these much maligned animals and want to do so in the most interesting and engaging environment possible.

“We hope people will enjoy the beautiful sculptures but take away an important message with them — if action isn’t taken now we stand to lose some of the oldest and most spectacular creatures in the sea."

Mr Wiggan added: "I’m pleased with the end results and hope the sculptures help to change people’s perceptions.”

The talented artist can usually be found creating intricate sculptures and bust-type figures out of tiny pencil nibs.

His previous work includes miniscule sculptures on the ends of pencils, including One Direction's Harry Styles, a pregnant Kate Middleton, all four of The Beatles, a car complete with tiny wheels, skulls, a Hallowe'en pumpkin head and a marlin fish bought by a customer in Canada.