Difficulty: Challenger (Level 3)
Around 115 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a huge shark swam in the waters near what is now northern Australia.
This recent discovery was made by scientists who found new fossils they believe belong to the earliest known giant predator in the family of modern sharks. It lived 15 million years before whales, great white sharks or giant sharks.
The researchers believe it is an ancestor of today’s six-metre great white shark. It is thought to be about eight metres long. Lamniforms, the ancestors of today’s great white sharks, appear in the fossil record from 135 million years ago. But at that time, they were small.
That is why the discovery that lamniforms had already become gigantic 115 million years ago was unexpected for researchers. The discovery has rewritten the timeline of shark evolution, the Western Australian Museum said.
