PALEONTOLOGICAL SUPERHEROES: COLLECTION MANAGERS COME TO THE RESCUE

As an amateur collector interested in paleontology, questions raised in the field have led to research in the lab. A trip to Bakersfield, CA opened my mind to several species of Miocene sharks (Carcharodon hastalis and Carcharodon planus), the former that I have collected from the Atlantic coast for the past 30 years. Recent scientific literature and discoveries have linked C. hastalis, C. hubbelli (transitional Great White), and C. carcharias (modern Great White) as ancestral relatives. By applying digital measurements using imageJ to individual teeth of associated fossil dentitions, as well as, the modern Great White (carcharias), we hope to demonstrate supporting evidence for the hastalis-hubbelli-carcharias taxonomic relationship, while exploring differences in their feeding ecology. Preliminary studies presented at GSA 2022 SE/North Central joint meeting in Cincinnati revealed graphic similarities in tooth morphology and tooth position from associated dentitions from two different fossil species, hastalis and hubbelli.

1. The ability to access one of these dentitions for scientific digitization was made possible through professional relationships with academic professors and the University of Florida Museum, Vertebrate Paleontology Collections. Further digitization was expanded to several hundred individual teeth (C. hastalis) from Florida locations, where stratigraphy and paleontological age were known.
2. Additionally, several hundred C. hastalis teeth were also digitized from the collections repository at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, MD. These teeth were individually documented from particular beds along the Calvert Cliffs and the data collected will be used for further morphological study.
3. As a result of this collaboration, we hope to investigate relationships between Atlantic C. hastalis both through geologic time and geographic latitude

The museum collections staff at both locations, as expected, were professional, interested in what I was doing, and supportive of my efforts. The information available on each tooth digitized was meticulously labeled and associated with every specimen, insuring confidence that care had been made to preserve accurate scientific data.