North Dakota Stratigraphy Carcharias ROCK ROCK UNIT COLUMN PERIOD EPOCH AGES MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO Common Name: Holocene Oahe .01 Sand tiger shark

Coleharbor Pleistocene QUATERNARY Classification: 1.8 Pliocene Unnamed 5 Class: Chondrichthyes Miocene 25 Arikaree Order: Lamniformes Family: Carchariidae

Brule Oligocene

38 Teeth of the shark Carcharias. Pierre Formation. Griggs County. South Heart Chadron Chalky Buttes Height of largest 7 mm. North Dakota State Fossil Collection.

Camels Butte Eocene Golden 55 Valley Bear Den

Sentinel Butte TERTIARY

Bullion

Paleocene Creek Teeth from the sand tiger shark, Carcharias. Paleocene Cannonball Slope Formation. Emmons County. University of North Dakota Cannonball Paleontology Collection.

Ludlow 65 Description: Hell Creek Carcharias is in the group of fish (Chondrichthyes) whose skeletons consist mostly of cartilage rather than bone. Rays and Fox Hills ratfish are also in that group. Carcharias, which still exists today, grow to lengths of about 10 feet. They live in temperate and tropical oceans generally inhabiting shallow, coastal waters. ACEOUS Pierre Carcharias is a predator and possesses long, slender, sharp teeth CRET adapted for ripping flesh. It mostly eats other fish. The only Carcharias fossils found are teeth because the cartilage skeleton 84 Niobrara of these fish does not preserve. They undoubtedly patrolled the shorelines of the Cannonball Sea 60 million years ago and were the Carlile main predators in that sea.

Carbonate Calcareous Shale Claystone/Shale

Siltstone Sandstone Sand & Gravel

Mudstone Lignite Glacial Drift

The sand tiger shark, Carcharias. Painting by, and courtesy of, Richard Ellis.

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