Glyphis glyphis

The speartooth shark is a rare species of river shark, belonging to the family Carcharhinidae. It inhabits coastal marine waters and tidal reaches of large tropical rivers in northern Australia and New Guinea. Despite being a member of the river shark genus, it is also found in near-shore marine waters, favoring highly turbid environments over a wide range of salinities. This robustly built, gray-colored shark is characterized by a short and broad snout, tiny eyes, a relatively large second dorsal fin, and a black blotch beneath each pectoral fin near the tip. Another identifying trait is its teeth, which are large, triangular, and serrated in the upper jaw and narrow, spear-like, and serrated only near the tips in the lower jaw. Adults grow to about 2.6 m (8.5 ft) long.

Glyphis glyphis

Bill Harrison from Wellington, New Zealand · 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
Also called
speartooth sharkPBDB
Sits inside
GlyphisPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes

Time the record covers

At most 6.3 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 5.333 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Miocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences10–10 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences10–9.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.9–9.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.7–9.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.5–9.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.2–9.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.0–8.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.7–8.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.5–8.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.2–8.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.0–7.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.8–7.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.5–7.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.3–7.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.0–6.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.8–6.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.5–6.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.3–6.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.0–5.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.8–5.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.6–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12.1 Mya4.8 Mya

1 occurrence of Glyphis glyphis on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

1 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

1 formation

Seria — 4.81°N, 114.67°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Glyphis glyphis and its relatives

Miocene

Where Glyphis glyphis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

49 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Glyphis glyphis, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Glyphis glyphis

Credit
Bill Harrison from Wellington, New Zealand
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Glyphis glyphis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itGlyphis through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Muller and Henle 1839)