New Species of Hybodont Shark

New Species of Hybodont Shark

Part of: GS-Prelims and GS-III: Environment

In News: In a rare discovery, teeth of new species of hybodont shark of Jurassic age have been reported for the first time 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.
• 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.

About Hybodont shark  

• Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic time. 
• 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.

News Source: PIB