ABOVE: An illustration showing what Galagadon would have looked like swimming along the riverbed
© VELIZAR SIMEONOVSKI, FIELD MUSEUM
An ancient shark species once swam in the rivers of present-day South Dakota, researchers reported yesterday (January 21) in the Journal of Paleontology.
The fossils came from the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota, where Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurs rex, was found. A volunteer at the Field Museum, where Sue resides, discovered the shark’s teeth in sediment left over from when the dinosaur’s bones were pulled from the ground.
“Most of its body wasn’t preserved, because sharks’ skeletons are made of cartilage, but we were able to find its tiny fossilized teeth,” says Pete Makovicky, one of the authors and the curator of dinosaurs at the Field Museum in Chicago, in a statement.
The shark’s moniker Galagadon comes from its teeth’s resemblance to the spaceships of the 1980s video ...
