A first-of-its-kind prehistoric shark tooth is on display in Manitoba — 83 million years after the shark in question patrolled local waters.
The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, Man., says the tooth belonged to a requiem shark, at a time when the province — like much of North America — was underwater as part of the Western Interior Seaway.
“It’s a really exciting find,” said Bruno Costa, a paleontologist at the centre. “This is the first finding of this individual, that is part of this order of sharks.
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“In this case it tells us that the diversity of sharks that existed during this time in Manitoba was larger. It adds more to the knowledge of the species of shark that existed at this point in time in Manitoba and the Western Interior Seaway.”
The waters located in what is now Manitoba were dominated by large marine reptiles, notably the mosasaurs the Morden museum is best known for, Costa told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg.
The newly discovered tooth is likely to have belonged to a much smaller animal — only about three to five feet long — but it’s in pristine condition.
Because it’s less than an inch long, you need a microscope to see it closely, but Costa said its condition is such that visitors to the museum can get a detailed look.
Although other parts of the country — notably Alberta — are more known for having been home to terrestrial dinosaurs, Costa said Manitoba is uniquely situated to find fossils of prehistoric aquatic creatures, as it was once underwater.
“Manitoba’s in a really good spot because we keep finding them all the time,” he said.
“We see often the bigger fossils, but we also need to pay attention to the microfossils, the much smaller ones.”