Paleontologists Discover Two New Shark Species From Fossils in Mammoth Cave National Park #fossils #paleontology #carboniferous #sharks #kentucky #nationalpark

An artist’s illustration of Glikmanius careforum swimming beneath Troglocladodus trimblei in ancient waters. Benji Paynose / NPS

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about a new fossil discovery.  Two new shark species from the Carboniferous have been described from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  Troglocladodus trimblei and Glikmanius careforum lived during the Carboniferous Period some 325 million yerars ago.  Both measured about 10 to 12 feet long.  The paper "Sharks in the dark: Paleontological resource inventory reveals multiple successive Mississippian Subperiod cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes) assemblages within Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky" was published in eScolarship, Open Access Publications from the University of California.

“These are active predators, really fast-swimming, catching other decent-sized fish, and in the case of Glikmanius, possibly even eating other sharks,” Rick Toomey, a cave guide and Mammoth Cave paleontologist, tells WBKO’s Derek Parham.

When these creatures lived, the region that is now Kentucky was an ancient seaway connecting North America, Europe and Northern Africa. Eons later, the strip of water got sealed off when the Earth’s tectonic plates rearranged, smashing the continents together into Pangea. Then, between 10 million and 15 million years ago, acidic rainwater began dissolving the limestone-rich ground to form the earliest shafts of the Mammoth Cave network, making the ancient rock beds accessible.