Description
Cosmopolitodus hastalis Shark
- Cosmopolitodus hastalis
- Miocene Age
- Pungo River Formation
- Lee Creek Mine
- Aurora, North Carolina
- This specimen measures approx. 2.05″ long.
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Cosmopolitodus is an extinct genus of mackerel shark that lived between thirty and one million years ago during the late Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene epochs. Its type species is Cosmopolitodus hastalis, the broad-tooth mako (other common names include the extinct giant mako and broad-tooth white shark). It is believed to be an ancestor to the great white shark. Â
C. hastalis was a confirmed hunter of marine mammals. It most likely would have been one of the major predators in its ecosystem, preying upon small whales and other mammals. Trace fossils in the form of tooth marks on the bones of a Pliocene dolphin of the species Astadelphis gastaldii reveal that C. hastalis attacked its prey from below and behind, much like the modern great white shark does.
Drawing by De Mark Conlin
