Ancient Seas #12 - Fun Facts
Ancient Seas Photo from Curiosity Helicoprion Helicoprion is an extinct shark, which lived 290 to 250 million years ago. This was during the Early Miocene to the Late Pliocene. They were found in oceans across the globe. It is believed they ate squid. "Helicoprion" means spiral saw. Can you guess why? Yep, because of that impressive jawline. They were discovered by Russian Andrzej P. Karpinski, in 1889. Only its teeth have fossilised, because soft tissues and cartilage do not fossilise. The spiral shape caused much confusion at the time of discovery! It is now widely agreed that they went in the shark's mouth, though it had been postulated that they were attached to the shark's fin! Although referred to as a "shark", helicoprion is more likely to have been a chimaera which was a cartilaginous fish. They grew up to 7.5m (25ft) and weighed 453.5kg (1,000lbs). The helicoprion survived a mass extinction which wiped out 90% of marine life a...