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Cali Swell Sharks Past And Present


nonmammalian

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Hello all,

More then anything I love my catsharks. I just took some new pictures comparing a Miocene, Ant Hill locality, Bakersfield tooth (right) to two modern Cephaloscyllum ventriosum teeth. What do you guys think?

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Your photos are not hi res but I think they are good enough to say that you have found a swell shark tooth. That's a nice find because even a lot of screening will not yield many of those. I have exactly one of those (screened it from Bob Ernst's "west side" quarry years ago).

Applegate (in Mitchell, 1965) reported Cephaloscyllium teeth in the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed but he did not figure any (frustrating!). I can only assume he was talking about the tooth form you are showing. As far as I know, the STH occurrence is the only one for the genus in the fossil record.

Mitchell, E. 1965.

History of Research at Sharktooth Hill. Special Publication of the Kern County Historical Society.

Hello all,

More then anything I love my catsharks. I just took some new pictures comparing a Miocene, Ant Hill locality, Bakersfield tooth (right) to two modern Cephaloscyllum ventriosum teeth. What do you guys think?

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From the wikipedia page:

"Phylogeny and evolution

Morphological and molecular phylogenetic studies have determined that the closest relative of Cephaloscyllium is Scyliorhinus, and that these two genera and Poroderma form the subfamily Scyliorhininae, the most basal clade of the order Carcharhiniformes.[2][4] The oldest confirmed Cephaloscyllium fossils come from Miocene epoch (23.0–5.3 Ma) deposits in California,[1] though based on the rate of DNA divergence in sharks the swellshark lineage likely dates back to the Cretaceous period (145.5–65.5 Ma).[4]"

So we need to find those cretaceous swell sharks!

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Sighteer, thank you for the feedback. It is nice to be part of the club! I agree that the pictures are not the best. I spent a fortune on a trinocular Olympus microscope only to get better micro pictures using my Cannon DSLR by itself. Frustrating.

Would you happen to have the Mitchell, E publication in PDF by chance?

Scylla, if I find a cretaceous Cephaloscyllum, you will be the first to know! :) And believe me, I will do my best!

For reference purpose I should add that the two modern ventriosum teeth above were from an adult female 805mm, 9.3lb

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Nonmammalian,

No, I just have a photocopy.

Jess

Sighteer, thank you for the feedback. It is nice to be part of the club! I agree that the pictures are not the best. I spent a fortune on a trinocular Olympus microscope only to get better micro pictures using my Cannon DSLR by itself. Frustrating.

Would you happen to have the Mitchell, E publication in PDF by chance?

Scylla, if I find a cretaceous Cephaloscyllum, you will be the first to know! :) And believe me, I will do my best!

For reference purpose I should add that the two modern ventriosum teeth above were from an adult female 805mm, 9.3lb

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Thanks Jess.

Since we are talking swell sharks here, I may as well throw it out there. I have an extensive Lebanese collection and have seen hundreds of specimens from there. I have only seen one shark with this body type though. For a small scyliorhinid shark with this much girth, I am 99% confident that it is of the Cephaloscyllium genus.

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Edited by nonmammalian
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Cephaloscyllium ventriosum (Swell Shark) - left side upper and lower jaws

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Edited by Paleoc
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Nice piture Paleoc

I took some new pictures. Here is a Philippine Cephaloscyllium. To compare the the morphologies of its body to the Lebanese one above.

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I am interested in feedback. Please feel free to be negative :) If it would help, I can work on new live C. umbratile pictures.

Since you all like your teeth, I may as well throw these images in since we are talking swell sharks.

Two more sp from the Philippines. FYI, these trawlers travel vast distances so I still would question the location of the specimens

It is identified as C. isabellum. There has since been a revision of Western North Pacific swell sharks Ebert and Da Silva 2008. C. isabellum is endemic to New Zealand as far as I am concerned.

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The next two jaws are undetermined Western Australian species.

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2nd

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And Australian C. laticeps

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Edited by nonmammalian
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  • 8 years later...

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