page_title: Squalicorax
section_title: Description of selected species
hierarchical_section_title: Squalicorax / Description of selected species
caption_attribution_description: English: Squalicorax falcatus USNM 11934
context_page_description: Squalicorax is a genus of extinct lamniform shark known to have lived during the Cretaceous period.
context_section_description: The following are the best studied American species for which relatively complete skeletons are described:
  Squalicorax falcatus (Agassiz, 1843) – is a medium-sized shark with a broad snout and relatively small teeth. Its length reached almost 3 m. It lived during the Cenomanian to early Santonian (Campanian). Complete skeletons are known from sediments of the Western Inland Sea of the Cretaceous in Kansas, South Dakota, and Wyoming, all in the USA. The teeth are also found in France, the Czech Republic, Canada, and Morocco. Given the small teeth, this species is considered a hunter of small prey. However, teeth marks on the bones of marine reptiles are evidence that these shark also fed on carrion. The body shape and structure of the trunk placoid scales indicate the ability to swim quickly. A fully articulated  1.9-m long fossil skeleton of Squalicorax falcatus has been found in Kansas, evidence of its presence in the Western Interior Seaway.
  Squalicorax kaupi (Agassiz, 1843) is from the late Santonian to the late Maastrichtian of North America, New Zealand, Japan, Africa, Europe, Kazakhstan, Jordan. and other places. It  was slightly larger than the preceding species, of which it was probably an ancestor.
  Squalicorax pristodontus (Agassiz, 1843) is the largest species, more than 5 m long. From the size of its largest known teeth, it can be estimated that S. pristodontus grew to 5 m (16.5 ft) in length. It lived during the late Campanian to early Maastrichtian of North America, France, the Netherlands, Egypt, Morocco, and Madagascar. The relatively complete remains (vertebrae and fragments of jaws) have been found in marine sediments in North America. It is the species with the largest teeth, these teeth being loosely spaced and relatively very large in comparison with other species. In this genus of sharks, studies have shown no precise correlation between the size of the teeth and the length of the body. They could eat relatively large prey and carrion.
  Squalicorax volgensis - the oldest species of the genus, from the Early Cretaceous of the Volga – has been described by L. Glickman et al. in 1971. The teeth of this species had virtually no serration. They are known from the Albian to the Turonian Age in Eastern and Western Europe, as well as Texas.
  The world's largest and most complete semiarticulated fossil of Squalicorax was  found in 2014 in stores of the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, Manitoba, in Canada, where it is now displayed. It measures more than 3 m in length.
caption: Fossil teeth of S. falcatus from Kansas
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