A New 300 Million Year Old Shark: Who Is It Related To?

Backed by Denny Luan
$100
Raised of $5,000 Goal
2%
Ended on 8/18/14
Campaign Ended
  • $100
    pledged
  • 2%
    funded
  • Finished
    on 8/18/14

About This Project

300 million years ago in what is now the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico, in an ancient estuary, an immense shark passed away. Rapidly buried in a near perfect state, she would rest there until the summer of 2013. Nine feet long, with 2-foot long dorsal fin spines, hundreds of teeth, she is the most complete example of her kind in the world, and she can solve a 200 year old mystery...

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What is the context of this research?

The study of extinct sharks is difficult due to the preservation biases of shark skeletons. Most shark skeletons are comprised of cartilage, an organic material that does not fossilize well. Most shark fossils are the preserved enamel covered body elements such as teeth, fin spines, and dermal denticles (tooth-like scales). However, under the right conditions cartilage can be preserved. This occurs usually in environments with high sediment deposition. Often only a few isolated elements are found; complete skeletons are extremely rare!

She is a ctenacanth, a group of extinct primitive sharks that lived between 320 to 252 million years ago. Until recently, ctenacanths were known from mostly isolated teeth, spines, and a few skeletal elements across the globe.

What is the significance of this project?

With a complete and well preserved ctenacanth skeleton we can finally answer the following questions:

* Are ctenacanths direct ancestors to modern sharks or represent a different branch of "primitive" sharks with modern shark qualities on the shark family tree?

* Did this extinct order of sharks vary in body shapes like some modern shark families?

* Did ctencanths change very little or a lot in their body and teeth shape?

* What was the function of the dorsal fin spines?

* How diverse was the shark fauna 300 million years ago?


This specimen represents more than just a complete shark skeleton, it is also a new genus and species. This conclusion is based on the shape of the teeth and the dimensions of the dorsal fin spines which are proportionally huge to the rest of the body.

What are the goals of the project?

The description of this specimen depends on comparative data. This data is obtained by investigation at domestic and international museums.

The investigation includes:

1. Photographs to understand the variance of in the shapes of teeth, spines, and other skeletal elements in other ctenacanth species.

2. Metric measurements for quantitative anaylsis of the statistical range of variance for ctenacanths and other extinct shark species from that time period.

Travel necessary is in two phases:

Domestic
1. American Museum of Natural History in New York
2. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History
3. The Field Museum in Chicago

International
1. The Hunterian Museum in Glasgow Scotland
2. The British Museum of Natural History in London England


Budget

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Traveling to museum collections is a integral part of paleontology and paleobiology. Many museums, particularly natural history museums, house important specimens that are used for comparative work in the description of new species or for data to propose new suggestions on old ideas.

However, travel, even domestically, is expensive. Time is valuable and with hundreds of specimens, often many days are needed to photograph and measure. In addition, foreign collections may house some of the specimens most important to your project.

To create an accurate description of this shark, by determining what she and her kin are related to, I will investigate specific museum collections. These collections house specimens that I will use as a basis for my comparisons.

Funding for this project will allow me to visit three key domestic museums in the US and two international museums in Great Brittan.

For every individual who donates to this project I will list their names in the acknowledgements section of the final published paper that describes this new species of shark, giving thanks to their contribution in bringing this shark back to life.

Meet the Team

John-Paul Hodnett
John-Paul Hodnett

Team Bio

I have always been strongly interested in paleontology, even when I was very young. The start of my professional interest in ancient life was during my junior year of high school, in Tucson Arizona, I became a volunteer for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum's Earth Science Department working with their fossil collections. During that time and post high school I did field work in Southern Arizona, collecting dinosaur and mammal fossils.

My interest in sharks was by "accident". While at Northern Arizona University I came across a 260 million year old sharks tooth in the bed rock of the campus. Since that experience I have been collecting and studying ancient sharks teeth which led to the description of five new species so far from Northern Arizona.

This project is exciting for me because not only is this shark a new species but it is also the first complete shark fossil I have discovered and worked on.

Please see my other work here

Outside of academia I enjoy cooking, painting, and fishing.

Lab Notes

Nothing posted yet.

Press and Media


Coverage of the CT scanning of the skull of our ctenacanth in May 2014:

Discovery News

1st Article

2nd Article

KOB4, Albuquerque NM

Video

Additional Information


Teeth from the lower jaw of the new Ctenacanth from New Mexico

The skeleton of the ctenacanth based on ct scans and the fossil surface. End of tail reconstructed. Art by John-Paul Hodnett


art by Ray Troll, www.trollart.com

Project Backers

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