Teeny teeth indicate ancient shark nurseries

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 09:00 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Fuelled by Hollywood and its vision of Jaws, sharks conjure images of fearsome predators patrolling our seas in search of their next unfortunate victim. It is therefore hard to imagine sharks as relatively small, harmless fishes living in lakes and rivers, as many species were more than 200 million years ago. Some scientists have suggested that these ancient sharks bred in the shallows of freshwater lakes, forming nurseries for their hatchlings. Reporting in the most recent issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of German paleontologists support this claim with spectacular 230 million-year-old fossil egg capsules and tiny teeth from Kyrgyzstan.

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