Evolution, diversity, and disparity of the tiger shark lineage <i>Galeocerdo</i> in deep time
- Author(s)
- Julia Türtscher, Faviel Alejandro López Romero, Patrick Leopold Jambura, René Kindlimann, David J. Ward, Jürgen Kriwet
- Abstract
Sharks have a long and rich fossil record that consists predominantly of isolated teeth due to the poorly mineralized cartilaginous skeleton. Tiger sharks (Galeocerdo), which represent apex predators in modern oceans, have a known fossil record extending back into the early Eocene (ca. 56 Ma) and comprise 22 recognized extinct and one extant species to date. However, many of the fossil species remain dubious, resulting in a still unresolved evolutionary history of the tiger shark genus. Here, we present a revision of the fossil record of Galeocerdo by examining the morphological diversity and disparity of teeth in deep time. We use landmark-based geometric morphometrics to quantify tooth shapes and qualitative morphological characters for species discrimination. Employing this combined approach on fossil and extant tiger shark teeth, our results only support six species to represent valid taxa. Furthermore, the disparity analysis revealed that diversity and disparity are not implicitly correlated and that Galeocerdo retained a relatively high dental disparity since the Miocene despite its decrease from four to one species. With this study, we demonstrate that the combined approach of quantitative geometric morphometric techniques and qualitative morphological comparisons on isolated shark teeth provides a useful tool to distinguish between species with highly similar tooth morphologies.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Palaeontology
- External organisation(s)
- Natural History Museum London, Haimuseum und Sammlung R. Kindlimann
- Journal
- Paleobiology
- Volume
- 47
- Pages
- 574-590
- No. of pages
- 17
- ISSN
- 0094-8373
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2021.6
- Publication date
- 03-2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 106012 Evolutionary research, 106021 Marine biology, 106054 Zoology, 105118 Palaeontology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all), Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Palaeontology, Ecology
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 14 - Life Below Water
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/evolution-diversity-and-disparity-of-the-tiger-shark-lineage-galeocerdo-in-deep-time(a9683d95-b2b7-4164-bd8a-58ccbf69e6bf).html