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Frilled Shark Found off the Coast of Portugal


FossilNerd

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Frilled sharks are very cool indeed!

 

It's a pretty basic article but then it is aimed at the general public. It's actually kind of difficult to read the article as it is constantly interrupted with "Related" links and all sorts of click bait stories cluttering up the page. I guess I'm too used to reading scientific articles. :P Reading the comments on the story are funny/sad and makes me appreciate the nature of the discussions on this forum over the bickering of social media sites. ;)

 

Does anybody know about the fossil record for frilled sharks? They are often labeled as 'living fossils' but I can't say I've ever seen frilled shark fossils (likely just teeth).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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1 hour ago, digit said:

It's a pretty basic article but then it is aimed at the general public. It's actually kind of difficult to read the article as it is constantly interrupted with "Related" links and all sorts of click bait stories cluttering up the page. I guess I'm too used to reading scientific articles. :P Reading the comments on the story are funny/sad and makes me appreciate the nature of the discussions on this forum over the bickering of social media sites. ;)

True. It’s a bit of a pain to read and a basic story. Sorry about that. :( 
 

My wife actually sent it to me this morning. I’m sure that she got it from one of the social media sites, so that explains a lot...

 

 I was so excited that she actually sent me a semi-interesting article that I posted it before I fully read through it. She tends to send me some sort of reality TV/celebrity junk, or crazy news article that I could care less about. We definitely have different tastes on what we find interesting. Opposites attract.:rolleyes:

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The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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8 hours ago, digit said:

Frilled sharks are very cool indeed!

 

It's a pretty basic article but then it is aimed at the general public. It's actually kind of difficult to read the article as it is constantly interrupted with "Related" links and all sorts of click bait stories cluttering up the page. I guess I'm too used to reading scientific articles. :P Reading the comments on the story are funny/sad and makes me appreciate the nature of the discussions on this forum over the bickering of social media sites. ;)

 

Does anybody know about the fossil record for frilled sharks? They are often labeled as 'living fossils' but I can't say I've ever seen frilled shark fossils (likely just teeth).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Ken I will give this a shot but I am not the most knowledgeable person here so I am sure somebody else might have better information. 

 

Frilled Sharks do go back to the Cretaceous at least. I am pretty sure the giant species, Chlamydoselachus goliath is a Cretaceous one from Angola. I think there are a few occurrences in the Paleocene and Miocene. France and Japan maybe. I do not believe there have been many, if any, North American occurrences. 

 

I researched this awhile ago and can’t remember a few specifics but it was very difficult to find many records. I think rare is an accurate description. 

 

Kurt

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17 hours ago, digit said:

Does anybody know about the fossil record for frilled sharks? They are often labeled as 'living fossils' but I can't say I've ever seen frilled shark fossils (likely just teeth).

Modern Frilled Sharks are currently classified in the order Hexanchiformes. The order dates to the Jurassic. The tooth morphology is identical to sharks of the order Phoebodontiformes which are found in the Devonian, but this must be convergent evolution if modern frilled sharks are truly in the order Hexanchiformes. Here are a couple photos I pulled off of a Google image search. They are modern frilled shark teeth and Devonian Phoebodus.

 

 

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16 hours ago, FossilNerd said:

True. It’s a bit of a pain to read and a basic story. Sorry about that. :( 

This is the world we live in. I'm actually impressed they did more than just tweet about it. ;)

 

57 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

Modern Frilled Sharks are currently classified in the order Hexanchiformes. The order dates to the Jurassic. The tooth morphology is identical to sharks of the order Phoebodontiformes which are found in the Devonian, but this must be convergent evolution if modern frilled sharks are truly in the order Hexanchiformes. Here are a couple photos I pulled off of a Google image search. They are modern frilled shark teeth and Devonian Phoebodus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexanchiformes

 

Indeed. The Frilled Shark and Cow Shark families seem to make up the Hexanchiformes. You can tell you are dealing with the survivors of a very ancient and basal lineage of sharks when the vast bulk of the order is composed of extinct species. Of course, when dealing with fossil shark species we generally only have the teeth to go by. The variation in shark teeth within a single species (and even within single individual) likely inflates the number of extinct species.

 

I wonder if anybody has ever secured DNA samples from the few remaining species in this order to test how close the Frilled Sharks are to the Cow Sharks? Would be cool to see if the DNA agrees with the meristics that put these two unusual shark families in close kinship.

 

Aside from the frilly gills, to me the most striking feature of this shark is that the individual rows of teeth which are so distinctly separated. The multiple sharp cusps on these teeth look to be very effective for securing the slippery cephalopods that appear to be the bulk of its diet. It is somewhat annoying though to see people to are unclear that the 'frilled' describes the very frilly gill slits. Instead, they attribute the descriptive term to the teeth. You can find references online describing 'frilled teeth' for this shark. I think 'awesome' and 'wicked' are much better terms to describe these teeth. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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