This Bizarre, Eel-Like Shark Prowled the Oceans 350 Million Years Ago

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 9 hours ago Animals

It grew to about 4 feet (1.2 meters) long.



The ancient Phoebodus shark may have resembled the modern-day frilled shark, shown here.The ancient Phoebodus shark may have resembled the modern-day frilled shark, shown here.(Image: © Scott Eisen/Getty Images)


The ancient seas once churned with strange creatures that have long since vanished, leaving behind only small traces of themselves to anchor our imaginations. But recently, paleontologists got a rare glimpse of a primordial beast — the first nearly complete skeleton of an ancient shark belonging to the genus Phoebodus.

Phoebodus sharks, which grew to about 4 feet (1.2 meters) long, lived over 350 million years ago, long before dinosaurs and the nightmarish Megalodon came into the planetary story. But prior to this study, scientists didn't know much about what Phoebodus looked like. Because shark skeletons are made up of soft cartilage, rather than fossilized bone, they deteriorate and vanish over time.

Indeed, the only evidence that these ancient sharks even existed came from discoveries of unique three-cusped teeth — that is, until a recent chance discovery on the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco brought the group face-to-face with an almost complete fossil of the ancient beast.

A member of the Berber group, an indigenous group in northern Africa, first found the fossil and brought it to Christian Klug, a paleobiologist at the University of Zurich and senior author of the study. Klug immediately realized the specimen didn't belong to "a normal fish," said lead author Linda Frey, who was a graduate student at the University of Zurich at the time.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/first-skeleton-ancient-shark-phoebodus-discovered.html