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Paleontologists in Kentucky and Alabama have discovered fossils belonging to three new ancient shark species. These long-extinct predatory fish lived when the region was covered by waterways connecting shallow subtropical oceans with ancient land masses older than Pangea.
[Related: Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago.]
Accidental tooth discovery
One of the new species of shark is Paleohypotodus bizocoi And that’s explained in a study published February 7 in the open access journal fossil record.Paleohypotodus This means “ancient small ear tooth” and had small needle-like fangs on the sides of the tooth. The discovery of the fanged tooth is said to have been by chance.
“A few years ago, while looking through historic fossil collections at the Alabama Geological Survey, we came across a small box containing a shark tooth collected in Wilcox County over 100 years ago,” said the researchers. says author and director June Ebersole. Part of the McWane Science Center’s collection said in a statement. “After recording fossils of hundreds of fish species over the past decade, it was puzzling that these teeth belonged to sharks we didn’t recognize.”
After examining the tooth, Ebersole discovered that it was likely a new species. It lived during the Paleocene epoch, about 65 million years ago. This was shortly after the dinosaurs began to go extinct and more than 75 percent of life on Earth became extinct.The team believes that P. Bizokoi They were the main predators at a time when marine life was beginning to recover.
“This period is understudied, which makes the discovery of this new species of shark even more important,” said study co-author Lynn Harrell, curator of fossil collections at the Alabama Geological Survey. Junior said in a statement. “Shark discoveries like this one give us tremendous insight into how marine life recovers after large-scale extinction events, and how global events like climate change are changing the way we live today. We may also be able to predict how this will affect marine life.”
Kaido shark 325 million years ago
On February 1, paleontologists at Mammoth Cave National Park announced the discovery of two new species of ancient shark. According to the National Park Service, Troglocladodus trimbley and Grikmanius Care Forum, confirmed by fossils collected in Mammoth Cave deposits in Kentucky and northern Alabama. Both of these shark species lived about 325 million years ago and are Ctenacanthus. The ancient cousins of these modern sharks all had spines on their spines for protection.
Scientists have discovered infant teeth that look like this: Troglocladodus trimbley. It was probably about 10 to 12 feet long, about the same size as modern oceanic white sharks.name Trogloclados It means “cave-forked tooth”, after the “forked-looking” chopper.
Grikmanius Care Forum find out the origin of this Grikmanius The genus Ctenacanth dates back more than 50 million years earlier than expected. It was identified from a partial set of teeth and jaws and gills from a young animal. Grikmanius. Scientists estimate that it was 10 to 12 feet long. The shape of its jaws suggests it had a powerful bite that was used to hunt bony fish, squid-like right-cone fish, and small sharks.
[Related: The ‘meg’ may have been longer and less chonky than previously thought.]
Both species likely hunted in ancient coastal habitats. This area was once an ancient sea route connecting what is now eastern North America, Europe, and northern Africa. Later, with the formation of the supercontinent Pangea, the waterway disappeared.
More than 400 unique species of sharks and teleosts have already been discovered in Alabama alone, making it a highly diverse fossil deposit of fish. Continued research, such as the paleontological inventory being conducted at Mammoth Cave National Park, may lead to the discovery of many more new shark fossils.
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