Shark tooth embedded in neck of flying reptile reveals ancient airborne conflict

'We now know sharks were hunting flying animals as long ago as 80 million years'

Artist's impression of a prehistoric shark snatching a Pteranodon from the sky (Mark Witton)

A shark tooth wedged in the neck of a fossilised flying reptile has opened a window onto a dramatic attack that unfolded millions of years ago.

The well-preserved pteranodon – a type of pterosaur that sported an elaborate crest – had the tooth embedded between its neck vertebrae, providing clear evidence of a shark bite.

These fossils offer a rare glimpse into an interaction between predators and prey playing out in the ancient oceans of North America.

Researchers came across the fossil in the collection of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, where it had lain unstudied since the 1960s.

Intrigued by the shark tooth, they first wanted to establish for certain it had not simply ended up fossilised next to the pterosaur bones.

They concluded the way it was lodged between the vertebrae ridges was evidence of a swift, violent bite by an 8ft shark species known as Cretoxyrhina mantelli.

This unique fossil reveals a long history of sharks attacking airborne animals that continues today, with modern species hunting birds.

“Understanding the ecology of these animals is important to understanding life on Earth through time,” said the study’s senior author Professor Michael Habib, from the University of Southern California.

“We now know sharks were hunting flying animals as long ago as 80 million years.”

While the scientists said they could not rule out scavenging, the researchers said it was possible the shark had plucked the reptile from the sky or grabbed it after it landed on the water.

Based on fossil evidence, palaeontologists have been able to surmise that pterosaurs ate fish and were able to take off and land from water, although this would have left them vulnerable to attack.

“We know big sharks ate pterosaurs, so we could say a big fast predatory species could very well have eaten this pteranodon when it entered the water, but we’ll probably never know exactly,” said Professor Habib.

The discovery was published in the journal PeerJ.