Odontaspis
Searched as Odontaspis (Synodontaspis) acutissuma. The Paleobiology Database treats Odontaspis as the accepted name.
Odontaspis and Greek: ἀσπίς aspís 'shield') is a genus of sand shark with two extant species.

Dr. Ken Sulak, U.S. Geological Survey · 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- Also called
- sand tiger sharkPBDB
- Sits inside
- OdontaspididaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Lamniformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Lamniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Lamniformes
Time the record covers
At most 4.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 27.3 Mya and 23.04 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Odontaspis on record, most of them in the Oligocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
2 occurrences- Oligocene100%
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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Odontaspis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Odontaspis and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Odontaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
3,352 taxa- Myliobatis46 sites
- Ischyrhiza mira39 sites
- Striatolamia macrota34 sites
- Cretalamna appendiculata33 sites
- Aetomylaeus dixoni32 sites
- Carcharias32 sites
- Archaeolamna kopingensis30 sites
- Squalicorax kaupi29 sites
- Hypotodus verticalis26 sites
- Brachycarcharias lerichei25 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis24 sites
- Dasyatis24 sites
- Protoplatyrhina renae24 sites
- Carcharhinus23 sites
- Carcharias samhammeri22 sites
- Cretorectolobus olsoni22 sites
- Scapanorhynchus texanus22 sites
- Squatina22 sites
- Crocodylia21 sites
- Heterodontus21 sites
- Meristodonoides montanensis21 sites
- Squatina prima21 sites
- Isurus20 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus20 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 276 sites for Odontaspis, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
1 referenceEach of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Odontaspis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dr. Ken Sulak, U.S. Geological Survey
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Odontaspis noronhai · TCWC:Ichthyology:3922.01
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Odontaspis”
- 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 itOdontaspididae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Agassiz 1838)