Sky news...prehistoric shark eating pterosaur evidence

[Derek.McManus]

Sky news website are reporting evidence that ancient sharks predated upon pterosaurs. The University of Southern California examined a specimen from the Los Angeles county museum and found a shark tooth lodged in its vertebrae, they claim that of 11000 specimens of pterandon only 7 or less than 1% show evidence of interaction with predators. Apparently details where published in Peer J journal.

[Halichoeres]

It's true! Here's the paper: https://peerj.com/articles/6031/

The shark in question is Cretoxyrhina, so if you have a small Pteranodon and the Safari Prehistoric Sharks Toob, you can reenact the scene! This follows evidence published earlier this year that pterosaurs were occasionally preyed upon/scavenged by sharks like Squalicorax and actinopterygians like Saurodon: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/sepm/palaios/article-abstract/33/9/414/548211/feeding-traces-on-a-pteranodon-reptilia

[Faelrin]

So something like that one scene in JW possibly happened in some way (just trade the Mosasaurus for a shark)? Or at the very least it was scavenged. Pretty cool information to have either way.

@Halichoeres I had the time, and I don't even know if these are in scale, but something like this, lol? It probably isn't even the right area, but I didn't think to check that first.

[Halichoeres]

NAILED IT

[Neosodon]

It's cool we have fossil evidence for it but not to surprising as it happens today with fish such as tuna eating birds.

[Ravonium]

What's quite impressive is how the shark tooth seems to have managed to stay connected to the vertebrae despite being under pressure from rock for millions of years.

Nice illustration in the paper too, reminds me of how great white sharks often breach when hunting seals.

[Loon]

Sky news...yep.

[ITdactyl]

And here's Mark Witton's lamentations over how some (other?) news outlets  butchered their paper:

http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2018/12/no-cretaceous-sharks-did-not-leap-from.html

One quote from the blog post: "Remember folks, these are the same guys who're reporting news about far more important things than pterosaurs: vaccinations, climate change, health and environmental issues, and so on: these pterosaur-devouring rocket sharks are stark reminders of how they work."

To think that the paper itself isn't even paywalled (link already provided in an earlier post by Halichoeres).