New Species of Hybodont Shark

In News 

• In a rare discovery, teeth of a new species of hybodontshark  of the Jurassic age have been reported for the first time from Jaisalmer by a team of officers from the Geological Survey of India (GSI).

About 

• Origin: 
  • Hybodont sharks have been reported for the first time from the Jurassic rocks (approximately, between 160 and 168 million years old) of the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan. 
  •  Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic times. 
• Decline: 
  • Hybodont sharks 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.
• Newly discovered crushing teeth: 
  • 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. 
  • The new species has recently been included in the Shark references.com
    • An international platform operating in association with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Species Survival Commission (SSC), and Germany.

                               Image Courtesy: PIB

• Significance 
  • 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: PIB