Selachimorpha

Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fishes characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the division Selachii and are the sister group to the Batomorphi. Some sources extend the term "shark" as an informal category including extinct members of Chondrichthyes with a shark-like morphology, such as hybodonts. Shark-like chondrichthyans such as Cladoselache and Doliodus first appeared in the Devonian Period, though some fossilized chondrichthyan-like scales are as old as the Late Ordovician. The earliest confirmed modern sharks (Selachii) are known from the Early Jurassic around 200 million years ago, with the oldest known member being Agaleus, though records of true sharks may extend back as far as the Permian.

Selachimorpha

NOAA Photo Library · CC BY 2.0 · 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
EuselachiiPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 86 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 3 of 6 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 6 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences89–86 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences13–10 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.9–754 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence89.8 Mya3.6 Mya96 Mya754 ka

6 occurrences of Selachimorpha on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

6 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

6 formations

Taime — 4.32°S, 81.25°WForemost — 49.60°N, 111.00°WDouble Corner Shell Beds — 43.12°S, 172.77°EChhasra — 23.44°N, 70.99°EMata Amarilla — 49.62°S, 71.13°WSchönleiten — 47.67°N, 14.80°E

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The named rock units Selachimorpha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Selachimorpha and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Selachimorpha and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

73 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Selachimorpha, 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

6 references

Each of the 6 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 content2

Picture of Selachimorpha

Credit
NOAA Photo Library
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itEuselachii through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Nelson 1984