The vertebrae of a monster shark that once swam the seas that covered Texas nearly 100 million years ago was discovered just west of Fort Worth in the Duck Creek Formation. College students on a paleontology trip discovered the fossil in 2009 and ended up excavating three total fossils belonging to the shark that measured at least 20 feet long. The enormous fish, Leptostyrax macrorhiza, would have been among the largest predators of its time.
In June, Joseph Frederickson and his wife Janessa Doucette-Frederickson, who were on the trip and first discovered the fossil, and their colleague Scott Schaefer published their findings, A Gigantic Shark From the Lower Cretaceous Duck Creek Formation of Texas, in the scientific journal PLOS One.
-FWTX Staff
