Carcharodon
Carcharodon Temporal range:
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Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Chondrichthyes |
Subclass: | Elasmobranchii |
Subdivision: | Selachimorpha |
Order: | Lamniformes |
Family: | Lamnidae |
Genus: | Carcharodon A. Smith, 1838 |
Type species | |
Species | |
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Carcharodon (meaning "jagged/sharp tooth")
Fossil History and Evolution
The fossil ancestry of Carcharodon an active area of research and debate, given the dearth of the fossil record and the incompleteness of found specimens. Most fossil remains of Carcharodon are in the form of teeth, with some vertebral centra;[2] as is the norm for fossil Chondrichthyans, since soft tissues don't preserve well, and a shark's skeleton is made of cartilage. Thus, assessing relationships between fossil species relies largely on the form of their teeth. This difficulty is compounded by the necessarily incomplete fossil record of Lamnids. However, some researchers have proffered Macrorhizodus, Isurolamna, and Cretalamna as candidates for genera ancestral to Carcharodon, taxa ranging from the Eocene to the Cretaceous.[3][4][5]
Carcharodon is well-represented in the fossil record by the Middle Miocene. The first widespread, cosmopolitan species being C. hastalis, with fossils recovered from North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.[6] The modern great white shark has been posited to have evolved from C. hastalis, through a transitional species, C. hubbelli.[2]
Study of white shark taxonomy is complicated by nomenclature and repeated taxonomic reassignments of various species. C. hastalis,
The fossil "mega-toothed" sharks like megalodon have also traditionally been placed in Carcharodon,[5] but most current literature refutes this position, placing mega-toothed sharks in a separate family, Otodontidae, and genus, Otodus (Carcharocles).[2][13]
Species
- Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus, 1758) (the great white shark)
- †Carcharodon hubbelli (Ehret et al., 2012)[2] (Hubbell's white shark)
- †Carcharodon hastalis? (Agassiz, 1843)[14]
- †Carcharodon planus? (Agassiz, 1856)[15]
- †Carcharodon subserratus (escheri)? (Agassiz, 1843)[14]
- †Carcharodon plicatilis (xiphodon)? (Agassiz, 1843)[14]
References
- ^ "Carcharodon", Wiktionary, 2022-01-02, retrieved 2023-01-04
- ^
- ^ a b Trif, N.; Ciobanu, R.; Codrea, V. (2016). "The first record of the giant shark Otodus megalodon (Agassiz, 1835) from Romania". Brukenthal, Acta Musei. 11 (3): 507–526.
- ^ OCLC 392312939.
- ^ "Carcharodon hastalis". Florida Museum. 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2023-01-04.
- ^ Glikman , L. S. (1964). "Sharks of the Paleogene their stratigraphic significance." Nakua Press, Moscow, 229 pp. [Russian]
- S2CID242113412.
- ^ Whitenack, L. B. and Gottfried, M. D. (2010). "A morphometric approach for addressing tooth-based species delimitation in fossil Mako sharks, Isurus (Elasmobranchii, Lamniformes)." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30, 17–25.
- ^ Kriwet, J., Mewis, H., and Hampe, O. 2015. A partial skeleton of a new lamniform mackerel shark from the Miocene of Europe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60 (4): 857–875.
- ISSN1943-6688.
- S2CID134274604.
- ^ a b c Agassiz, L. J. R. 1833–1844. Recherches sur les poisons fossiles. Text (5 vols; I., xlix + 188 pp., II xii + 310 + 366 pp., III viii+390pp., IV xvi+296pp., V xii+122+160pp.) and Atlas. Imprimerie de Petitpierre, Neuchâtel.
- ^ Agassiz, L., 1856. Notice on the fossil fishes found in California by W.P. Blake. American Journal of Science and Arts, Series 2, 21: 272–275.