The fossil of a huge great white shark relative that lived among the dinosaurs has been discovered in Mexico.
The discovery was made in a limestone quarry to the country's northeast by an international team of archeologists and paleontologists. Their find is detailed in a Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences study.
The bones of the creature, which lived during the Cretaceous period, were extremely well preserved, making this a rare find.
Paleontologists believe the creature had the potential to reach up to 30 feet long. In the study, they describe the animal as "gigantic." This makes it far bigger than the modern great white sharks. It belongs to the durophagous lamniforms (mackerel shark) family and is possibly the largest of this type of shark ever to have lived.
The near in-tact fossil allowed scientists to get a good picture into the extinct species, and what it may have looked like, as well as what it may have eaten and how it moved. Some bones were so well-preserved that eye sockets, fins, tails and even the impression of organs were visible, a summary of the findings reported.
"Specimens mostly consist of isolated teeth or more or less complete dentitions, whereas cranial and post-cranial skeletal elements are very rare," the authors wrote in the study.
The creature was of the genus Ptychodus, an extinct genus of durophagous sharks known for having particularly large teeth that had a vicious bite.
Scientists believe this shark, which would have hunted hard-shelled prey such as sea turtles, went extinct about 76 million years ago. They believe that its choice of prey may have been a big factor in the extinction as other animals had evolved that hunted the same animals, presenting competition.
"Our [...] analyses indicate that ptychodontids were high-speed durophagous lamniforms [mackerel sharks], which occupied a specialized predatory niche previously unknown in fossil," the authors explained in the study.
It is likely that this shark looked similar to porbeagle sharks that are still alive today, lead author Romain Vullo, a researcher at Géosciences Rennes, told Live Science.
Looking at the shape of its streamlined body, scientists determined that the shark must have been able to swim exceptionally fast.
Ptychodus sharks were likely widespread throughout the seas during parts of the Cretaceous period, Charles Underwood at Birkbeck, University of London told the New Scientist. However, scientists know very little about the genus.
"It's almost the last jigsaw piece in putting together Cretaceous ecosystems," Underwood said.
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about sharks? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
Update 04/25/24, 10:13 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a locator map.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
