Bizarre Ancient Shark Glided Through The Sea Via Its Wing-Like Fins
BIZARRE ANCIENT SHARK – Scientists recently discovered the fossil of a bizarre ancient shark that glided through the sea via its wing-like flaps.
The plankton-eating shark-shaped marine creature, which existed 93 million years ago, glided through the sea, which is now northeastern Mexico, via its curiously elongated wing-like fins that make its body wider than long, according to ABS-CBN News.
Scientists discovered the nearly complete fossil of the creature, identified as Aquilolamna milarcae, that existed during the Cretaceous Period, a time when dinosaurs ruled the land.
The creature, which has a fin span of about 6-1/4 feet and a length from head to tail of about 5-1/2 feet, has left the scientists in awe.
The genus Aquilolamna translates to “eagle shark” in reference to its slender pectoral fins, which “mainly acted as an effective stabilizer,” says Romain Vullo, who is the lead author of the study published in the journal Science; and is with Geosciences Rennes, a research unit involving the University of Rennes and France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)..
“Many adjectives can be used to describe this shark: unusual, unique, extraordinary, bizarre, weird. Yes, it is the only shark that is wider than long,”
“Aquilolamna is indeed a perfect example of an extinct creature revealing an unexpected new morphology. This strongly suggests that other outstanding body shapes and morphological adaptations may have existed through the evolutionary history of sharks,”
The shark had a cartilaginous skeleton like all sharks and related skates and rays. It had the torpedo-shaped body and tail of a shark but it has unique pectoral fins.
Aquilolamna appears to have been a slow-swimming shark that fed on plankton via filter-feeding, like what modern plankton-eating whale sharks and basking sharks do.
The shark’s fossil, which was unearthed in Mexico’s state of Nuevo Leon, did not reveal its filter mechanism for eating.
Based on the report, Aquilolamna appears to have one something like what rays do: swim through the water as if they are flying through the air.
“Whereas the locomotion of manta rays is like underwater flight, with flapping movements of their powerful pectoral fins, the long slender pectoral fins of Aquilolamna rather acted as the wings of a glider, or sailplane,”
The shark lived in open ocean at a time when the seas were filled with marine reptiles, relatives with large shells called ammonites, various bony fishes, and large sharks. The largest predator at that time in its ecosystem was a shark called Cretoxyrhina.
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