Protosqualus

Protosqualus is an extinct genus of dogfish shark known from fossils found in Cretaceous rocks in Europe, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, and South America. The type species is Protosqualus sigei, which was found around an Albian-aged deposit in France. There are six species, which can be differentiated by distinct features in their teeth. Some species, such as P. barringtonensis, exhibit high levels of heterodonty. The oldest specimens are from the Speeton Clay Formation. Protosqualus teeth are quite common in the Grey Chalk deposit of England. The genus went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, with the last species in the genus being Protosqualus argentinensis from southern Argentina as well as possibly being from earlier deposits in India.

Protosqualus

Bubblesorg · CC BY 4.0 · 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
SqualidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Squaliformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Squaliformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Squaliformes

Time the record covers

At least 37 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 47 of 69 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 22 of 69 occurrencesLate Cretaceous127–125 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 1 occurrence123–121 Mya — about 1 occurrence114–112 Mya — about 2 occurrences112–110 Mya — about 3 occurrences110–108 Mya — about 4 occurrences108–106 Mya — about 4 occurrences106–105 Mya — about 10 occurrences105–103 Mya — about 10 occurrences103–101 Mya — about 10 occurrences101–99 Mya — about 6 occurrences99–97 Mya — about 5 occurrences97–95 Mya — about 5 occurrences95–93 Mya — about 4 occurrences92–90 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences90–88 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences88–86 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences86–84 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121.4 Mya83.6 Mya127 Mya71 Mya

69 occurrences of Protosqualus on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

69 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

11 formations

Hunstanton — 54.15°N, 0.17°WHunstanton — 53.68°N, 0.50°WSpeeton Clay — 54.15°N, 0.17°WLabguva — 54.88°N, 23.92°ELabguva — 55.09°N, 22.90°EJiesia — 55.08°N, 24.48°EJiesia — 55.06°N, 24.37°EFerriby — 54.15°N, 0.17°WMata Amarilla — 49.89°S, 71.69°WKarai — 11.10°N, 78.90°EBurgsteinfurt — 52.19°N, 7.17°EHibernian Greensand — 54.95°N, 5.91°WBurim — 49.72°N, 31.54°EOmagari — 44.71°N, 142.01°E

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The named rock units Protosqualus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Protosqualus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Protosqualus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

140 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Protosqualus, 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

14 references

Each of the 69 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Protosqualus

Credit
Bubblesorg
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Protosqualus 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 itSqualidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cappetta 1977