YouTube Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/xvAvN5xn5oY?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1

Deep in the heart of northern Kansas, researchers excavated farmland that used to be under the ocean and ended up finding a brand new species of shark that lurked beneath the surface around 91 million years ago.

During the middle to the late Cretaceous period, the region of the United States we know now as the Great Plains was submerged under the North American Western Interior Seaway, with Mitchell County, Kansas lying at the edge of the eastern boundary of the water.

Just as the oceans are teeming with life today, so too did the ancient seaway. And also like today, sharks were an apex predator that most marine animals feared.

DePaul University professor of paleobiology Kenshu Shimada and Michael Everhart from the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University thought they had uncovered the remains of a prehistoric shark species known as Credotus crassidens, which ranged from England to North America.

However, when they compared the teeth they had found to known Credotus crassidens teeth, they realized to their delight that they had just found a brand new species of shark, which they named Cretodus houghtonorum in honor of Keith and Deborah Houghton, who owned the land where the specimen was found and donated it to the museum.

“That’s when we realized that almost all the teeth from North America previously reported as Cretodus crassidens belong to a different species new to science,” Shimada said.

The pair of researchers found more than just teeth, which they explained in a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology:

The specimen is largely disarticulated but consists of at least 134 teeth, 61 vertebrae, 23 placoid scales, and multiple small fragments of calcified cartilage. The scale morphology suggests that Cretodus was a more sluggish shark than Cretoxyrhina and Cardabiodon. The vertebral centra are well calcified and exhibit many radiating calcified lamellae typical of ‘lamnoid vertebrae.’ The teeth are represented by 34 upper left teeth, 28 upper right teeth, 31 lower left teeth, and 22 lower right teeth, with the lamnoid tooth pattern. The dentition shows a strong tendency to monognathic heterodonty, and each tooth row consisted of up to at least five functional and replacement teeth.

Bigger than the Great White

The teeth, of course, tell us a lot about sharks both living and extinct. But this specimen revealed even more.

“Much of what we know about extinct sharks is based on isolated teeth, but an associated specimen representing a single shark individual like the one we describe provides a wealth of anatomical information that in turn offers better insights into its ecology,” Shimada, said in a statement.

Based on the vertebrae, the team estimated the shark’s length at around 17 feet, and that it could have possibly reached 22 feet, bigger than a Great White Shark named Deep Blue estimated to be 20 feet in length and is also a distant cousin of the Credotus along with the Tiger Shark.

“As important ecological components in marine ecosystems, understanding about sharks in the past and present is critical to evaluate the roles they have played in their environments and biodiversity through time, and more importantly how they may affect the future marine ecosystem if they become extinct,” he said.

Indeed, sharks are vulnerable to extinction today due to the demand for shark fin soup. But if sharks disappear, ocean eco-systems would be thrown into chaos.

In addition, Shimada and Everhart believe Credotus houghtonorum engaged in cannibalism before birth, much like modern-day sharks.

“What is more exciting is its inferred large size at birth, almost 4 feet or 1.2 meters in length, suggesting that the cannibalistic behavior for nurturing embryos commonly observed within the uteri of modern female lamniforms must have already evolved by the late Cretaceous period,” Shimada said.

But that was not the most exciting part of the excavation. Like a forensic team, Shimada and Everhart had the opportunity to map out a series of events that occurred 91 million years ago, starting with the ingestion of a hybodontid shark by the Credotus, only for the Credotus to die and be scavenged upon by a Squalicorax shark before it, too, succumbed to whatever killed it near the same spot.

During the excavation, two teeth of Squalicorax cf. S. falcatus and two partial dorsal fin spines of a hybodontid shark were discovered. The two fragmentary dorsal fin spines are thought to have come from a single hybodont individual that was likely ingested by the individual of Cretodus houghtonorum. The teeth of S. cf. S. falcatus, on the other hand, may represent teeth that were accidentally shed during scavenging of the carcass of C. houghtonorum. If so, this fossil record may represent a trophic chain of three different sharks. In addition, the present fossil record suggests that C. houghtonorum typically inhabited nearshore environments and Cretoxyrhina mantelli offshore environments within the North American Western Interior, possibly representing a case of resource partitioning between the two species.

“Circumstantially, we think the shark possibly fed on the much smaller hybodont and was in turn scavenged by Squalicorax after its death,” Everhart said.

That’s a fascinating find that certainly provides a clear picture of the eat or be eaten world of Cretaceous period oceans. These waters were obviously dangerous.

Related: Are billionaires buying up land away from the coasts based on prophecies or inside information?

In the end, the scientists understand that without the cooperation of landowners, they would not be able to make discoveries like this one, which is why they hope to foster goodwill among landowners across Kansas and the rest of the world so that further research can shed more light on these ancient eras in Earth’s history and fill in the gaps with new species so we can further understand the creatures living among us today.

“We believe that continued cooperation between paleontologists and those who are most familiar with the land is essential to improving our understanding of the geologic history of Kansas and Earth as a whole,” Everhart said.

Sharks are an important foundational species in the ocean environment. Letting them go extinct would be a great loss. Sharks have survived on this planet for over 91 million years. If they die out now, we only have ourselves to blame and we’ll suffer for it just as much as every species that relies on the ocean.

More about sharks on the Great Plains from PBS Eons:

Featured Image: Wikimedia with screenshot via YouTube

YouTube Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/x_7eHqWOrKA?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1

Archaeologists made a fascinating find in Norway recently by uncovering not just one ancient Viking boat grave, but two. And the mysterious bit is that the man and the woman in the double grave were buried 100 years apart.

Vikings often buried important members of their society inside boat graves, which is a mound that covers a longboat. Some of these boats have even been recovered and are currently on display in Denmark at the Viking Ship Museum.

In addition to the bodies of the deceased, Vikings would bury items they believed a person would need in the afterlife such as jewelry, livestock, and weapons.

As you can imagine, archaeologists get pretty excited when they find a Viking boat grave.

And that’s exactly what archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Museum found at a farm known as Skeiet at Vinjeøra on the side of a cliff. Only they didn’t just find one, they found two.

First, the team excavated the boat grave of a woman who died during the 9th century. With her was buried a brooch that turned out to be a decorative harness fitting that Vikings likely seized during a raid in Ireland.

“The decoration and the design itself tell us that it came from Ireland and that it was once part of a harness fitting,” NTNU Department of Historical Studies researcher Aina Heen Pettersen said in a press release. “It was common among the Vikings to split up decorative harness fittings and reuse them as jewelry. Several fastenings on the back of this brooch were preserved and were used to attach leather straps to the harness. The new Norse owners attached a pin to one of the fastenings so it could be used as a brooch.”

Vikings frequently raided coastal lands in the United Kingdom and continental Europe seeking treasure and new territories to colonize, including Ireland. In fact, the Vikings actually saved Ireland from a steep population decline in the 10th century.

“The Viking voyages – whether for raids, trading or other expeditions – were central in Norse society,” Pettersen continued. “That meant it was important to participate in this activity, not only for the material goods but also to raise both your own and your family’s status. Using artifacts from Viking raids as jewelry signaled a clear difference between you and the rest of the community because you were part of the group that took part in the voyages.”

The brooch is not the only item in the grave. The woman was also buried with a spinning wheel, a pearl necklace, scissors and the head of a cow.

But then the team dug a little bit deeper and were shocked to discover that a man in a similar boat grave had been buried earlier during the 8th century. The woman had been buried in a smaller boat right above him as if the Vikings were reusing the burial mound.

“I had heard about several boat graves being buried in one burial mound, but never about a boat that had been buried in another boat,” NTNU University Museum archaeologist and excavation project manager Raymond Sauvage said. “I have since learned that a few double boat graves were found in the 1950s, at Tjølling, in the south of the Norwegian county of Vestfold. Still, this is essentially an unknown phenomenon.”

Indeed, what’s even more fascinating is that the man was buried during the Merovingian era, which researchers figured out based on the style of the sword they found in the grave.

“Sword styles change through the centuries, which means we can unambiguously date this grave to the 8th century, the period that is known as the Merovingian era in Northern Europe,” Sauvage said. “That’s assuming that we are not dealing with a Viking hipster.”

The Merovingian kings were a royal dynasty that ruled a large swath of territory in Western Europe, including France from the middle of the 5th century AD to around 751 AD in the middle of the 8th century. And that’s why Sauvage says the mound dates back to that era as well, making it a very rare find.

“The burial mound must naturally be older than the oldest boat grave, meaning early Merovingian age,” he said. “This is a fascinating era in Scandinavian history, from which there are few archaeological finds.”

Sauvage went on to point out that the farm likely belonged to a single family for generations, which means the mound could be a family grave.

“Family was very important in Viking Age society, both to mark status and power and to consolidate property rights,” he said. “The first legislation on allodial rights in the Middle Ages said you had to prove that your family had owned the land for five generations. If there was any doubt about the property right, you had to be able to trace your genus to haug og hedni – i.e. to burial mounds and paganism. Against this backdrop, it’s reasonable to think that the two were buried together to mark the family’s ownership to the farm, in a society that for the most part didn’t write things down.”

Further evidence that the two share a familial relationship is that the woman’s brooch is also from the Merovingian era, possibly being passed down through the years.

“So far, we’ve found part of a brooch from the Merovingian era, indicating that the large burial mound once held a richly appointed woman’s grave,” Sauvage said.

However, only DNA testing will tell us for sure.

“We hope we will be able to get some DNA from the skull to provide us with more information, such as what she looked like,” he said.

And we also know that these individuals must have been particularly important because of where the mound is located on the property.

“The connection between the boat graves and between the boat graves and the mound is very exciting,” Sauvage said. “The two boat graves are also located right at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the fjord. This must have been a monument in the landscape.”

Anyone who looked up at the cliff from the fjord would have seen this burial mound, almost certainly ensuring that the family would be remembered and revered.

Either that or they just wanted a nice view in the afterlife.

Once again, researchers have found Viking boat graves, which seem to be less rare these days, especially as technology improves. Unfortunately, the mound had been plowed over by farmers for hundreds of years, which is why it had not been found sooner. And this is just one part of the mound. There could be more in the center and the other sides. It’s just a matter of excavating the site further. Until then, we must wait in anticipation.

Featured Image: YouTube screenshot