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What is the news?
Recently, teeth of new species of hybodontshark of Jurassic age (approximately, between 160 and 168 million-years-old) have been reported for the first time from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
What is the history of Hybodonts?
Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic time.
It started to decline in marine environments from the Middle Jurassic onwards until they formed a relatively minor component of open-marine shark assemblages.
Hybodonts finally became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous time 65 million years ago.
What is the recent discovery?
The newly discovered crushing teeth from Jaisalmer represent a new species named by the research team as Strophodusjaisalmerensis.
The genus Strophodus has been identified for the first time from the Indian subcontinent and is only the third such record from Asia, the other two being from Japan and Thailand.
What is the significance of the discovery?
This discovery marks an important milestone in the study of Jurassic vertebrate fossils in the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan, and it opens a new window for further research in the domain of vertebrate fossils.
Source: This post is based on the article ” Discovery of New Species of Hybodont Shark From Jurassics of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan ” published in the PIB on 15th September 2021.
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