Biology:Galagadon

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Short description: Genus of sharks known only from fossils

Galagadon
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 67.4 Ma
Scientific classification edit
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Subdivision: Selachimorpha
Order: Orectolobiformes
Genus: Galagadon
Gates, Gorscak and Makovicky, 2019
Species:
G. nordquistae
Binomial name
Galagadon nordquistae
Gates, Gorscak and Makovicky, 2019

Galagadon (/ɡælʌɡədɒn/) is an extinct genus of small carpet shark that lived during the Late Cretaceous period. It contains one species, G. nordquistae. It was named after the video game Galaga due to a resemblance between its teeth and the spaceships in the game,[1] and Field Museum volunteer Karen Nordquist.[2]

The extinct shark would have traversed the rivers and wetlands of South Dakota some 67 million years ago. The find, dating to the late Cretaceous period, was presented in the Journal of Paleontology.[3][1]

Discovery

Galagadon nordquistae was described from small teeth found in limestone originating from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in western South Dakota, specifically that left over from the excavation of the remains of Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex.[4][5] According to William Simpson, the head of geological collections and the collections manager for fossil vertebrates at the Chicago Field Museum, the museum in which G. nordquistae's teeth are currently housed, the limestone was only preserved "because there are tiny fossils in the matrix, and I knew that one day I could find a victim some day to go through all of that rock and look for the tiny fossils".[lower-alpha 1][4]

References

Notes

  1. "Matrix" refers here to limestone.[4]

Wikidata ☰ Q60874090 entry