Cardabiodon
Name:
Cardabiodon.
Phonetic: Car-doe-by-o-don.
Named By: Mikael Siverson - 1999.
Classification: Chordata, Chondrichthyes,
Elasmobranchii, Lamniformes, Cardabiodontidae.
Species: C. ricki (type),
C. venator.
Diet: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: Studies of vertebrae and jaw
reconstructions indicate an upper size of 5.5 meters.
Known locations: Fossil locations known to include
Australia, North America and Russia. There is speculation that
discoveries in England and Kazakhstan may actually represent further
remains.
Time period: Cenomanian to early Turonian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Initially described from
100 teeth and 15 vertebrae, further remains including those of
a second species have now been included, including placoid scales.
Cardabiodon
is a genus of shark
that is known to have lived during at least the
Cenomanian and early Turonian periods of the late Cretaceous. First
named from fossil teeth and vertebrae discovered in Australia,
further examples are known from North America and Russia, as well as
speculated in other locations. However, so far Cardabiodon
fossils
have only been found in fossil deposits that depict what were temperate
locations, with a notable absence in tropical waters (for the late
Cretaceous period). This would indicate that Cardabiodon
preferred
cooler waters, though probably not to the extent of the polar cold.
Cardabiodon fossils are also known from what were
fairly deep ocean
floor locations, revealing that Cardabiodon were
mostly pelagic
(open water) predators.
Large
Cardabiodon are generally accepted as ranging
between five and five and
a half meters long. At the time of the initial description of
Cardabiodon as a genus in 1999, Mikael Siverson
estimated the total
length of the holotype individual to be at least five meters in
length. In a 2005 paper by Siverson and Lindgren, the holotype
individual was stated as being five hundred and forty centimetres
long, by comparing the best preserved vertebrae and comparing it to
vertebrae of Carcharodon carcharias (great white
shark). In a
2013 paper by Newbrey et al, the upper length of Cardabiodon
upon the basis of existing fossils was stated as five and a half
meters.
So
far Cardabiodon seems to have been comparable to
the large modern
predatory lamniform sharks that we know today, but still quite a bit
smaller than the largest recorded great white shark which was a little
over six meters long. The shark that Cardabiodon
is most often
compared to however Cretoxyrhina,
an extinct genus of shark that is
also known to have lived in the Cretaceous period at the same time as
Cardabiodon. Both of these shark genera are known
to have keeled
placoid scales which reduced drag when swimming through water, which
in turn strongly suggests that both Cardabiodon and
Cretoxyrhina were
active predators suited for fast swimming. One difference between
Cardabiodon and Cretoxyrhina
however is that Cretoxyrhina is known from
both tropical and temperate deposits, implying that Cretoxyrhina
had
a greater tolerance to differences in temperature.
Swimming
in the late Cretaceous seas, Cardabiodon would
have likely
encountered many other genera of sharks other than just Cretoxyrhina.
However at this time the seas would have also been filled with a
multitude of marine reptiles, ranging from plesiosaurs,
pliosaurs,
marine crocodiles
to even early mosasaurs.
Some of these may have
formed part of the diet for a hungry Cardabiodon,
though in turn,
Cardabiodon may itself have been occasional prey to
some of these
predators, such as the large pliosaur Brachauchenius,
especially when younger.
Cardabiodon, Cretolamna, Cretoxyrhina, Hybodus, Ptychodus, Scapanorhynchus, Squalicorax.
Further reading
- A new large lamniform shark from the uppermost Gearle Siltstone
(Cenomanian, Late Cretaceous) of Western Australia. -
Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences,
90: 49-66. - Mikael Siverson - 1999.
- Late Cretaceous sharks Cretoxyrhina and Cardabiodon
from Montana,
USA. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 50 (2): 301–314. -
Mikael Siverson & Johan Lindren - 2005.
- The first record of the large Cretaceous lamniform shark,
Cardabiodon ricki, from North America and a new
empirical test for
its presumed antitropical distribution. - Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 30 (3): 643–649. - Todd D. Cook, Mark
V. H. Wilson & Michael G. Newbrey - 2010.
- Vertebral morphology, dentition, age, growth, and ecology
of the large lamniform shark Cardabiodon ricki.
- Acta
palaeontologica Polonica - Michael G. Newbrey, Mikael
Siverson, Todd D. Cook, Allison M. Fotheringham &
Rebecca
L. Sanchez - 2013.
- Vertebral Morphology, Dentition, Age, Growth, and Ecology of the
Large Lamniform Shark Cardabiodon ricki. - Acta
Palaeontologica
Polonica. 60 (4): 877–897. - Michael G. Newbrey, Mikael Siverson, Todd
D. Cook, Allison M. Fotheringham & Rebecca L. Sanchez - 2015.
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