Illustration of Helicoprion

This illustration shows one old idea of what the ancient shark Helicoprion might have looked like. There was room for many ideas—some more plausible than others—because the only fossils of the fish were of a strange, spiral-shaped jaw loaded with teeth. Where did it go? In its mouth, on its nose, or its head? A study published in 2013 finally cleared up the mystery: the spiral is completely embedded in the shark's lower jaw and serves as it's full toothset, unlike the sharks drawn here, which have full jaws in addition to the toothy whorl. Read more about this finding in our Great White Shark featured story.

Artistic rendering of an ancient shark, Helicoprion.
© Mary Parrish/Smithsonian Institution

comment_wrapper_curve_top

Share your comments here.

* When you click submit, your comment will be added to the queue for review and will be published after approval.

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Filtered words will be replaced with the filtered version of the word.

More information about formatting options

Type the characters you see in this picture. (verify using audio)
Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. Not case sensitive.

comment_wrapper_curve