A newly identify fresh water shark from the Cretaceous Period had teeth that resembled the iconic Galaga video game spacefighter . Remarkably , the remains of this shark were found in the same pile of debris that contain Sue the T. rex — the largest and most pure fossil of the species ever get .
introduce Galagadon nordquistae , a newly discovered freshwater shark that swam in the Cretaceous rivers of South Dakota some 67 million yr ago . It was n’t very big , measuring around 12 to 18 inches in length , and it probably scoured the riverbed in search of small fish , escargot , and crayfish , according tonew researchpublished today in the Journal of Paleontology . The scientist who discovered Galagadon said the shark is related to modern - twenty-four hours carpet shark , the queerly shapedwobbegong sharkbeing a beneficial representative .
All that ’s left of Galagadon are two twelve diminutive tooth , which were found in the same sediment that yieldedSue , the famous T. rex skeleton . The remains of this fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex were uncovered 20 years ago in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota . Smartly , the remnant sediment from this work , called the matrix , was n’t throw away , and was rather stored at the Field Museum in Chicago for safekeeping . late , a team of scientists and volunteers decided to take a 2d spirit at this two - short ton pile of filth in hopes of finding some fossils — which turned out to be a good idea .
As take note , only the teeth of Galagadon stay on . Its other body part are long gone , mostly because gristle does n’t preserve very well . Paleontologist Terry Gates , the tip author of the new study and a lecturer at North Carolina State University , and his colleagues derive the sizing , shape , and behaviour of Galagadon by liken its teeth to those of similar shark species , both extinct and extant .
“ Thankfully , the shark dentition in our study indicate a stuffy relationship to living carpet sharks so we have reasonable inferences on their ancient lifestyles , ” Eric Gorscak , a fossilist at the Field Museum and a Colorado - generator of the new work , told Gizmodo . “ dentition are ordinarily dear indicator of diet for obvious reason . These sort of reconstruction are usually arduous with other extinct animals , such as non - avian dinosaurs , in that they take issue quite significantly from most living creature analogue . ”
Galagadon ’s dentition are less than a millimeter across , so they could ’ve been easy pretermit .
“ It was so tiny , you could escape it if you were n’t wait really cautiously , ” Karen Nordquist , a retired chemist and a volunteer who helped to find the teeth in the sediment , say in a statement . “ To the naked eye , it just looks like a little bump , you have to have a microscope to get a respectable view of it . ”
Nordquist was struck by the shape of these teeth , which cue her of the starship in Galaga . Her colleagues appreciated the comparison , and they decided to name the shark after the Graeco-Roman video game and Nordquist herself .
Galagadon and T. Rex , as this finding suggests , were contemporaries . The discovery of a freshwater shark in this part of the world , however , is challenging conventional thinking about the environment in South Dakota at the clip . Sue , it was thought , lived and died near a lake that formed from an vaporize river , but the front of Galagadon suggests the neighborhood was connect to the sea , likely by a river , allow sea - ground shark to move inland and evolve a capacitance to live in freshwater .
“ It may seem odd today , but about 67 million eld ago , what is now South Dakota was insure in forests , swamps and winding rivers , ” said Gates in a program line . “ Galagadon was not swooping in to raven on T. rex , Triceratops , or any other dinosaurs that pass off into its current . This shark had tooth that were practiced for catch small fish or crushing snails and [ crayfish ] . ”
The find is also authoritative because it ’ll help scientists “ understand the variety and potential dynamics of ancient ecosystems , especially in the context of non - avian dinosaurs such as mankind famous Sue the T. rex , ” tell Gorscak . “ The sharks described in our newspaper assistant inform the evolutionary history of modern carpet shark , a group of shark that currently live around southeast Asia and Australia but we now know to have had a larger image in their millions of year history . ”
Future discoveries could shake off more light on Galagadon and its home ground , but for now , the uncovering of an ancient shark within the same sediment that held Sue the T. rex seems unreasonably appropriate .
[ Journal of Paleontology ]
BiologyEvolutionPaleontologyScienceSharks
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