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30 June 2016 The Oldest Fossil Record of the Megamouth Shark from the Late Eocene of Denmark and Comments on the Enigmatic Megachasmid Origin
Kenshu Shimada, David J. Ward
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Abstract

The megamouth shark (Lamniformes: Megachasmidae) has sporadic occurrences both in the present-day oceans and in the fossil record. In this paper, we describe a new megachasmid, Megachasma alisonae sp. nov., on the basis of a morphologically distinct tooth collected from the Pyt Member of the late Eocene Søvind Marl Formation at Moesgård Strand in Denmark, that represents the geologically oldest known Megachasma. The tooth likely came from an individual that measured somewhere between 1.3 and 3.5 m long, and its morphology and chipped cusp tips suggest that it possibly fed on macro-zooplankton and small fishes that had hard skeletal components. Its occurrence in the mid-Priabonian Pyt Member at least suggests that the shark inhabited a relatively deep, open marine environment about 36 Ma ago. This Eocene specimen is significant because it illustrates the dental condition of early megachasmids, which is distinctively odontaspidid-like morphologically.

© 2016 K. Shimada and D.J. Ward. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Kenshu Shimada and David J. Ward "The Oldest Fossil Record of the Megamouth Shark from the Late Eocene of Denmark and Comments on the Enigmatic Megachasmid Origin," Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 61(4), 839-845, (30 June 2016). https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00248.2016
Received: 4 February 2016; Accepted: 1 February 2016; Published: 30 June 2016
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