The scissor-shark

Sharks have been the haunted predators in many eras. In the Devonian, there were Placoderms, in the Mesozoic, there were marine reptiles and in the Cenozoic there were whales... There is only one little gap: the Carboniferous-Permian gap. It lacked great marine predators, which allowed sharks to take the upper hand. They underwent an explosion of diversity, with sharks with curled jaws, weird dorsal fins, hybodonts and this... Had it not been for a massive extinction to happen at the end of the Permian, creatures like this so-called 'scissor-shark' might have been today still...

The 'scissor-shark', also known as Edestus, is one of the most extraordinary examples of biodiversity withing sharks in the so-called 'shark-revolution' at the start of the Carboniferous. 'Scissor-shark' refers to the fact Edestus didn’t have two jaw-halves; it had only one upper- and one lower jaw-half. At seven meters, this creature was slightly larger than modern great whites, with likely a much bigger bite force! And larger teeth… (please click to enlarge for a better view on the teeth!)

Edestus was an Eugeneodontid shark, just like the more commonly known Helicoprion, to which it was distantly related. Eugeneodontids are an extremely primitive group of sharks and some paleontologists even consider them to be holocephalians. Eugeneodontids are often shown not having the proper fin-arrangement for sharks, but I have always wondered why, so in this drawing, I decided to greatly reduce the fins near the tail, but not leaving them out altogether.

The last thing I want to remind you guys of is to keep in mind sharks are becoming increasingly threatened. Fishing for fins in the shark-fin soup, as well as sharks getting stuck in the nets of fishermen and many other things causes the shark population to drastically decrease. Are money and trophies worth more than seeing these creatures swimming in the wild and interacting with nature, just as they've done for 400 million years? Please support the sharks and other fish and don't help to disrupt the cycle. Please think before you eat, buy or catch.

So Petr, I told you it would appear in my gallery once, and here it is! I hope you like your “what the hell is this thing?”! And yes, this work is once again for the shark-week contest of Eofish. I find it a shame there are so less participants for such an interesting contest, so I encourage you all to just get something on paper and participate!

Regards!!