Researchers at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky have discovered two prehistoric shark species through an inventory of fossils, officials announced Thursday.
While the park is named for the wooly mammoth from the Ice Age, it also has a band of fossils dating back 323 million to 359 million years ago to the Mississippian geological period.
Back then, what is now Kentucky was submerged beneath a tropical sea, in which swam the newly discovered Troglocladodus trimblei and Glikmanius careforum, park officials said.
Troglocladodus trimblei represents a new genus and new species. The first part of the name means cave branching tooth. The second is named for Mammoth Cave National Park Superintendent Barclay Trimble, who found its first specimen, a tooth, in 2019. It is estimated to have been 10 to 12 feet long and similar in size to an oceanic white tip shark.
Glikmanius careforum is a new species of shark that, with its discovery, pushes its origin back 50 million years earlier than previously thought. It’s also estimated to have been 10 to 12 feet long, with the same size as a lemon shark.
“Every new discovery at Mammoth Cave is possible due to collaborations,” Superintendent Trimble said in a statement.
Park officials also posted illustrations of what the species may have looked like and pictures of the tooth and jaw fossils on Instagram.
The park’s inventory of fossils began in 2019, and another ancient shark species identified last October, Strigilodus tollesonae, was the first new species discovered at the park.