A fisherman operating out of a port in Russia’s Arctic north has been captivating his social media followers with pictures of the weird and wonderful creatures being pulled up from the deep sea.
One such discovery is the frilled shark, often referred to as a “living fossil” due to its primitive, eel-like physical characteristics. This mysterious creature boasts a dark-brown coloration, amphistyly (articulation of the jaws to the cranium), and a body measuring up to 2.0 meters (6.6 feet) in length, featuring dorsal, pelvic, and anal fins located towards the tail.
Lurking beneath the tumultuous oceans of ancient Earth were a plethora of strange and monstrous creatures, many of which scientists are just now beginning to identify and understand. Among these intriguing discoveries is a new type of ancient Phoebodus shark that once thrived in the warm primordial seas of our planet approximately 360 million years ago.
Until recently, researchers remained uncertain about the exact appearance of these savage, eel-like sharks. The first nearly-complete skeleton of this ancient shark has shed light on its anatomy, marking a significant milestone in our understanding of these elusive creatures. Shark skeletons, composed of soft cartilage instead of fossilized bone, tend to degrade and disappear over time, making this discovery even more remarkable.
Phoebodus sharks, reaching lengths of about four feet, inhabited the Earth long before the arrival of larger, land-dwelling dinosaurs. A fortunate find in Morocco’s Anti-Atlas Mountains by the local Berber people yielded this rare fossilized specimen embedded in prehistoric marine layer sediment dating back to 360-370 million years ago.
The findings from this discovery were published in a recent study in The Royal Society’s online journal.
“The fossils are so well preserved,” said Frey, one of the researchers. “We were really happy about this discovery. The fossils were very well preserved because they were sitting in low-oxygen conditions, where decomposing organisms couldn’t pick them apart.”
Upon spotting the shark carcass, the indigenous North African residents promptly transported the fragile fossil to Christian Klug, a paleobiologist at the University of Zurich and senior author of the study. Klug quickly realized that this specimen did not belong to “a normal fish.”
Careful analysis by the University of Zurich team revealed that the creature possessed a streamlined, eel-like body and an elongated snout reminiscent of the modern frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus), despite the two species being entirely unrelated.
While the exact appearance of this sleek Phoebodus shark in its natural state remains a mystery, this discovery represents a crucial piece of the paleontological puzzle, contributing to our evolving understanding of these enigmatic prehistoric predators.
