NPR has a story about the discovery of a new species of shark from Kansas. This animal, Cretodus, lived about 91 million years ago in the Western Interior Seaway. It measured about 17 feet long. Read all the details in a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
GARDEN CITY, Kansas — Paleontologist Mike Everhart had found a rib from a plesiosaur — an ancient ocean reptile — on the Ringneck Ranch in north-central Kansas in 2009. He returned in early spring 2010 searching for more bones.
Everhart brought a friend, Gail Pearson, and Pearson’s friend Fred Smith. Both men had experience hunting fossils.
But Smith, Everhart said, was bored and decided to search elsewhere. Five minutes later, Smith came back and told Everhart he found a piece of petrified wood.
“There was this round fossil on one end and another round fossil on the other end and, to him, it looked like a tree branch,” Everhart said. “I took one look at it and said, ‘No, Fred, that’s a shark.’”
The ground was muddy that day, which made searching for more fossils impractical. Then a snowstorm hit the ranch. Everhart and the group came back a month later and began finding vertebrae and shark teeth.
