Angle Shark
Squatina (Dumeril, 1906)
Squatina hassei (Leriche, 1929)
Squatina sp.

Age Upper Jurassic - Recent

 Commonality: Cretaceous - Common/Tertiary - Uncommon
 

Squatina is an extant ray-like shark with a fossil record dating back to the Upper Jurassic. Over the past 150 million years there has been little evolutionary change in this genus. As a result, the assignment of isolated teeth to a species is difficult at best. Kent (1994) suggests "the easiest method for separating individual species is by stratagraphic.

In New Jersey isolated Squatina teeth can be found in both the Cretaceous and Tertiary locations. Squatina hassei is from the Late Cretaceous and is the only species reported from the New Jersey Cretaceous making this identification relatively easy. I only have a few poorly preserved specimens from the Tertiary and will make no attempt to assign these to a specific species.

 



Cretaceous


 

Squatina hassei
Top - l
abial / lingual views
Bottom - profile / bottom views
Wenonah Formation
Late Cretaceous
Monmouth County, NJ,
 


 

Squatina hassei

Angle Shark
Squatina hassei

Late Cretaceous
Monmouth County, NJ,


 


These teeth fall into my definition of "micro", anything small enough to
slip through 1/4 inch mesh screening.

Squatina hassei


 


Left -Labial view of Squatina hassei Right - Profile view
Monmouth County, NJ
 


 

Squatina hassei

One of the few teeth I've found large enough to get hung up in
the standard 1/4 inch screening


 

The vertebrae of the angle shark is unique looking.
There is calcified cartilage on the lateral surfaces of the centrum.

Specimen donated to the New Jersey State Museum.

 


 

Tertiary
 


Squatina sp.
Top - l
abial / lingual views
Bottom - occlusal  / basal views
Tertiary
Monmouth County, NJ,

 


References

Kent, B. W. 1994. Fossil Sharks of the Chesapeake Bay Region. Egan Rees and Boyer, Inc., Columbia, MD, 146 pp.

 

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