The ancient giant that dwarfs today's white sharks!
The discovery of several shark fossils that lived between 105 and 72 million years ago in the late Cretaceous has shed light on the mysterious genealogy of sharks.
According to an online report, in the “Lagerstätte” fossil beds in “Vallecillo” in Mexico, paleontologists made a historical discovery; Several well-preserved fossils of an extinct species called “Ptychodus” have been preserved in this area.
This species is named “Takhurde Dandan” in Persian language; The found fossils had well preserved the articulated bones of sharks and some cartilaginous structures and outlines of the body and even the organs of sharks. The details of the found fossils showed how the teeth and vertebrae of sharks fit with their body tissues.
Fossils finally confirm that Ptychodus is a type of shark belonging to the Lamniform family, which includes great white sharks; In contrast to Ptychodus, today's white sharks are aquatic dwarfs. Its length was 9.7 meters. Their teeth were crushing spears that allowed the animal to have even crustaceans in its food basket.
“Our results support the view that 'Lamniforms' (the order to which megalodons and great whites belong) were ecomorphologically very diverse,” says a team of paleontologists led by Romain Velo from the French National Center for Scientific Research.
Ptychodus may have fed primarily on prey such as ammonites and sea turtles rather than benthic invertebrates, and its extinction during the Campanian, well before the end-Cretaceous crisis, may have been related to competition with emerging turtles.
Ever since the first Ptychodus tooth fossils were found in England in 1729, it has been a mystery. Most of the remains found in the following centuries were teeth and vertebrae, only certain parts of the shark skeleton and other body bones of these predators and cartilaginous remains did not tend to remain in the soil.
Although the remains of their bodies are scattered, the few remains that have been found around the world provide enough clues to point to the animal that left us. It should be said that there are currently sharks on the planet that adopt a similar feeding strategy.
