Shark vs. Pteranodon: Ancient fossil shows who would win in prehistoric fight
- Published
- comments
Chomp! What the battle between the prehistoric shark and a Pteranodon could have looked like, as drawn by an artist.
If you've ever wondered who would win in a fight between a shark and a giant flying reptile, we could have found the answer.
Researchers from the University of South Carolina were studying fossils when they came across one that seems to show it's the shark who would come out as the winner!
It was a fossil of a Pteranodon discovered in the 1960s that held the clue.
When scientists took it from storage to study, they were amazed to discover a shark's tooth stuck in the Pteranodon's spine.
The Pteranodon skeleton and, shown by the red arrow, the shark's tooth embedded in it's spine.
The tooth belonged to Cretoxyrhina mantelli, a prehistoric shark of a similar size to the great white sharks around in our oceans today.
Pteranodons are Pterosaurs and existed at the same time as dinosaurs.
They could fly long distances and could land on the surface of the sea to hunt fish.
Although we'll never know exactly what happened for sure, the scientists involved in the study think it's likely that the shark took a chomp out of the Pteranodon while it lay on the surface of the sea.
Lesson learned - never mess with a shark!
- Published24 July 2017
- Published7 December 2017
- Published1 September 2018
