‘ Gigantic Shark ’ Found In Duck Creek Formation, Texas

[Oxytropidoceras]

20-Foot ‘Gigantic Shark’ Fossil Found in Duck Creek

Formation of Texas, Newsweek by Polly Mosendz,

June 4, 2015 http://www.newsweek.com/20-foot-gigantic-shark-fossil-found-duck-creek-formation-texas-339692

Fossils of monster shark found in Texas. Science

Recorder. James Sullivan, June 5, 2015

http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/2015/06/05/fossils-of-monster-shark-found-in-texas/

Fossils of Prehistoric Shark Discovered in Texas by

Sci-News.com, June 5, 2015

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-leptostyrax-macrorhiza-texas-02882.html

Frederickson, J. A., S. N. Schaefer, and J. A. Doucette-

Frederickson, 2015, A Gigantic Shark from the Lower

Cretaceous Duck Creek Formation of Texas. PLOS ONE

Published: June 3, 2015DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127162

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127162

Yours,

Paul H.

Edited June 5, 2015 by Oxytropidoceras

[FossilDAWG]

Looks interesting from the headline, but I'm not going to subscribe just to read the article.

Don

[Boesse]

Well, that's the great thing about PLOS One: the actual peer reviewed article is freely available at the last link in the top post - to anybody, no institutional subscription needed. I know you're talking about one of the news sites - why bother with that when you can go straight to the actual publication!

[Al Dente]

I hope he was misquoted and doesn't really believe that his 20 foot shark was one of the two or three largest sharks ever. Several species today exceed 20 feet. Maybe his was really fat.

[Shellseeker]

Good looking teeth!!!

Anyone from Texas got these.

http://northtexasfossils.com/fieldtrips/2011-04-02/2011-04-02-024-lepto-800.jpg

[FossilDAWG]

Thanks for the additional links Paul. When I responded above, the only link was to the newsweek article.

Cheers,

Don

[Al Dente]

Good looking teeth!!!

Anyone from Texas got these.

http://northtexasfossils.com/fieldtrips/2011-04-02/2011-04-02-024-lepto-800.jpg

You have me confused. The article in the link said no teeth were found. Does the PLOS one article show teeth?

[MikaelS]

Nice looking vertebrae and very typical for cardabiodontid sharks of late Albian age. Although Cardabiodon has not been recorded in the Albian of Texas, cardabiodontid teeth (at this stage I recognise no less than three cardabiodontid genera of which one is yet to be described. At least two of these are present in the late Albian) do occur in Kansas (eg Kiowa Shale). With further collecting it is highly probable that teeth of cardabiodontids will be identified in the late Albian of Texas. Due to their size and very robust construction vertebrae of cardabiodontids are always massively over represented which may lead to erroneous conclusions when attempting to pair them with isolated teeth. For example at the type locality of Cardabiodon ricki, shed teeth of this species comprise about 1 % of all surface collected non-anacoracid lamniform teeth whereas all non-anacoracid lamniform vertebrae collected at this site belong to this species.

I might add that a natural association of vertebrae of very similar size and morphology (eg 100mm+ diameter, thick corpora calcarea, similar Cardabiodon-style radial lamellae and insertion pits for the neural arch not reaching corpus calcareum) from the earliest late Albian of Queensland includes a partial, cardabiodontid dentition. Morphologically the Duck Creek specimens are roughly intermediate between the vertebrae of the older Queensland shark and those of the holotype of C. ricki.

Any shark vertebra with a diameter above 100mm of late Albian age is likely to be cardabiodontid.

Edited June 6, 2015 by MikaelS

[Shellseeker]

You have me confused. The article in the link said no teeth were found. Does the PLOS one article show teeth?

Sorry for the confusion. I had the name of the shark and just searched the net looking for teeth from that shark and then provided a link to the teeth I had found. Then I was asking (a little foolishly) if any of out Texas shark teeth hunters had teeth like these.

[LanceH]

I was there when they found them.

 

Me and Roger Farish (Dallas Paleo) showed them the locality.

[LanceH]

Here are the centrums they collected 24 May 2010 after being treated with diluted acetic acid.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by LanceH