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Description
Water-wasteland, doesn't look like the shark is gonna find much food here. This is one of my last pics for the sharkweek contest of Eofish. After seeing ’s entry for the contest, I knew I had to come up with something good, and here it is… I personally think it’s the best of my shark-drawings, which I uploaded in the past month, but you guys might not share that opinion.

Anyway, it features Cardabiodon, a seven meter Lamniform shark from the Early-Cretaceous of Australia, related to great whites and mako-sharks (Lamnidae), otodontids and cretoxyrhinids. It is placed in its own family, the Cardabiodontidae, but a place in the Cretoxyrhinidae has also been suggested.

During a quick study on the relationships within the Lamniformes, I found out these are considerably more complicated than I had thought, especially the genus Cretolamna plays a key-role. Cretolamna is considered a cretoxyrhinid, but at the same time the direct ancestor of Otodus, an otodontid (duh ), and also considered the ancestor of Palaeocarcharodon, which itself is again considered a cretoxyrhinid, a possible ancestor to the modern great white AND Carcharodon (Megalodon), which again is an otodontid. That would mean both Cretolamna and Palaeocarchardon would actually be otodontids, which evolved out of a cretoxyrhinid and that the otodontids gave rise to the Lamnidae. If that’s accurate, then it would be inappropriate to state Cretolamna and Palaeocarcharodon would be cretoxyrhinids and that the Lamnidae evolved from the Cretoxyrhinidae. I guess Cardabiodon (and thus the Cardabiodontidae) would then be a sister taxon to this cretoxyrhinid-otodontid-lamnid clade…

That’s a lot of complicated taxonomic and cladistics stuff, so I guess I’ll let you guys now just enjoy the image (if you can…). One last thing I want to remind you guys of is to keep in mind sharks are becoming increasingly threatened. Fishing for fins in the shark-fin soup, as well as sharks getting stuck in the nets of fishermen and many other things causes the shark population to drastically decrease. Are money and trophies worth more than seeing these creatures swimming in the wild and interacting with nature, just as they've done for 400 million years? Please support the sharks and other fish and don't help to disrupt the cycle. Please think before you eat, buy or catch. And I'd like to thank user Quasipalm at Wikimedia Commons for the beautiful picture of the sand ripples.

Well, for now I hope you guys just enjoy this drawing, and the next one will be a little different from what I usually do, but that’s still a surprise! Have fun!

P.S. A fun fact might be that I myself also have a Megalodon teeth, and two teeth I initially thought were from Otodus, but as Otodus-teeth are almost indistinguishable from Cardabiodon-teeth, I'm not sure to which one it belongs...

Description
Water-wasteland, doesn't look like the shark is gonna find much food here. This is one of my last pics for the sharkweek contest of Eofish. After seeing ’s entry for the contest, I knew I had to come up with something good, and here it is… I personally think it’s the best of my shark-drawings, which I uploaded in the past month, but you guys might not share that opinion.

Anyway, it features Cardabiodon, a seven meter Lamniform shark from the Early-Cretaceous of Australia, related to great whites and mako-sharks (Lamnidae), otodontids and cretoxyrhinids. It is placed in its own family, the Cardabiodontidae, but a place in the Cretoxyrhinidae has also been suggested.

During a quick study on the relationships within the Lamniformes, I found out these are considerably more complicated than I had thought, especially the genus Cretolamna plays a key-role. Cretolamna is considered a cretoxyrhinid, but at the same time the direct ancestor of Otodus, an otodontid (duh ), and also considered the ancestor of Palaeocarcharodon, which itself is again considered a cretoxyrhinid, a possible ancestor to the modern great white AND Carcharodon (Megalodon), which again is an otodontid. That would mean both Cretolamna and Palaeocarchardon would actually be otodontids, which evolved out of a cretoxyrhinid and that the otodontids gave rise to the Lamnidae. If that’s accurate, then it would be inappropriate to state Cretolamna and Palaeocarcharodon would be cretoxyrhinids and that the Lamnidae evolved from the Cretoxyrhinidae. I guess Cardabiodon (and thus the Cardabiodontidae) would then be a sister taxon to this cretoxyrhinid-otodontid-lamnid clade…

That’s a lot of complicated taxonomic and cladistics stuff, so I guess I’ll let you guys now just enjoy the image (if you can…). One last thing I want to remind you guys of is to keep in mind sharks are becoming increasingly threatened. Fishing for fins in the shark-fin soup, as well as sharks getting stuck in the nets of fishermen and many other things causes the shark population to drastically decrease. Are money and trophies worth more than seeing these creatures swimming in the wild and interacting with nature, just as they've done for 400 million years? Please support the sharks and other fish and don't help to disrupt the cycle. Please think before you eat, buy or catch. And I'd like to thank user Quasipalm at Wikimedia Commons for the beautiful picture of the sand ripples.

Well, for now I hope you guys just enjoy this drawing, and the next one will be a little different from what I usually do, but that’s still a surprise! Have fun!

P.S. A fun fact might be that I myself also have a Megalodon teeth, and two teeth I initially thought were from Otodus, but as Otodus-teeth are almost indistinguishable from Cardabiodon-teeth, I'm not sure to which one it belongs...