Search the Community

Not sure where to post this request, so change as appropriate. The Maryland Natural History Society will be holding its annual Shark Fest in August. I volunteer there. As part of our educational displays, a skate skeleton would be useful for folks to see, feel the cartilage and to see the protective dermal denticles. I have looked on the internet but have not come up with with any. I looked on taxidermy sites and online. I wondered if any TFF members may have or can refer me to a person or site where such a skeleton or partial piece like a tail section would be available. Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Mysterious event nearly wiped out sharks 19 million years ago By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Live Science, June 3, 2021 "It's unknown whether the ancient sharks died off in a single day, weeks, years or even thousands of years." The paper is: Elizabeth C. Sibert and Leah D. Rubin, 2021 An early Miocene extinction in pelagic sharks Science 04 Jun 2021: Vol. 372, Issue 6546, pp. 1105-1107 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz3549 Yours, Paul H.

I just received recently from @Coco six pieces of shark and ray skin (smallest 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches, largest 14 inches by 3 inches) shown in the below picture. There are four pieces of skin from the sharks Mustelus asterias (Starry Smoothhound), Centrophorus squamosus (Leafscale Gulper Shark), Galeorhinus galeus (School shark) and Mustelus mustelus (Smoothhound Shark) and two pieces of skin from the rays (skates) Dipturus oxyrinchus (Sharpnose Skate) and Leucoraja naevus (Cuckoo Skate). If you search fine matrix, you can find fossil shark placoid scales and ray dermal denticles like the extant ones shown below. All four shark skins show extremely dense placoid scale coverage. These placoid scales are very small, less than 1 mm, with the exception of the placoid scales on the Centrophorus squamosus skin, which are around 1.25 mm, which is fairly large for a shark placoid scale. Mustelus asterias (Starry Smoothhound Shark) The skin comes from side of the body where you can see both the ventral white color and the dorsal grey color with white spots. Placoid scales on grey: Placoid scales on one of the white spots: Placoid scales close-up on grey: Placoid scales on white: Placoid scales close-up on white: Centrophorus squamosus (Leafscale Gulper Shark) The skin is reddish brown. The Leafscale Gulper Shark gets its common name from the leaf-shaped placoid scales on the skin of adults. Juveniles have bristle-like placoid scales. Placoid scales on reddish brown skin: Close-ups of individual scales (1.25 mm): Continued in next reply Marco Sr.