Carcharomodus

Carcharomodus is an extinct dubious genus of lamnid shark. Its only species is Carcharomodus escheri, The actual valid name of C. escheri is Isurus subserratus (escheri). Commonly nicknamed the serrated mako shark or Escher's mako shark. It was once interpreted as a transitional form between the broad-toothed ‘mako’ Carcharodon hastalis and the modern great white shark, but is now regarded as a distinct evolutionary lineage rather than a direct ancestor, particularly following the discovery of Carcharodon hubbelli, which clarified the great white shark’s evolutionary history.

Carcharomodus

Agassiz (1843) · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
LamnidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Lamniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Lamniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Lamniformes

Time the record covers

At least 6.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 13.82 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Miocene — about 10 of 12 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 12 occurrencesPliocene14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences9.8–9.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences9.5–9.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences9.1–8.7 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences8.7–8.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences8.3–8.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences8.0–7.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences7.6–7.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.2–6.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.8–6.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.5–6.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.1–5.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.3–5.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences5.0–4.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.6–4.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.2–3.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.8–3.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences11.63 Mya5.333 Mya14.3 Mya3.1 Mya

12 occurrences of Carcharomodus on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Gram — 55.31°N, 9.06°EGram — 55.28°N, 9.00°EBreda — 52.15°N, 6.61°EBreda — 51.47°N, 5.80°EGrange Burn — 37.73°S, 141.94°EArenas de Huelva — 37.33°N, 6.68°WChoptank — 38.16°N, 76.83°WDeist — 51.19°N, 4.46°EGram — 53.52°N, 10.56°EGonda — 36.67°N, 138.09°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Carcharomodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Carcharomodus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Carcharomodus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

228 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Carcharomodus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Carcharomodus

Credit
Agassiz (1843)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Carcharomodus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLamnidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kriwet et al. 2015