Otodontidae

Otodontidae is an extinct family of sharks belonging to the order Lamniformes. Its members have been described as megatoothed sharks.[1][2] They lived from the Early Cretaceous to the Pliocene, and included genera such as Carcharocles and Otodus, including the giant megalodon.[3] Recent studies of the newly described genus Megalolamna indicate that the members of the genus Carcharocles should be reclassified as members of the genus Otodus.[4] The genus Cretalamna which lived from the mid-Cretaceous-Paleogene is believed to be directly ancestral to Otodus, and thus to megalodon.[5]

Otodontidae
Temporal range: Albian-Late Pliocene
~115–3.6 Ma
Teeth of Otodus obliquus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Order: Lamniformes
Family: †Otodontidae
Gluckman 1964
Genera

Carcharocles
Cretalamna
Kenolamna
Megalolamna
Megaselachus
Otodus
Palaeocarcharodon
Parotodus

References
  1. "Mega-toothed Shark". Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2019-09-21.
  2. Cartier, Kimberly M.S. (2018-12-11). "Extinct Megatoothed Shark May Have Been Warm-Blooded". Eos. Retrieved 2019-09-21.
  3. Joseph S. Nelson (2006). "Order Lamniformes". Fishes of the World (4th ed.). John Wiley and Sons. pp. 57–60. ISBN 978-0-471-25031-9.
  4. Large prehistoric shark
  5. Jun A. Ebersole; Dana J. Ehret (2018). "A new species of Cretalamna sensu stricto (Lamniformes, Otodontidae) from the Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Campanian) of Alabama, USA". PeerJ. 6 (e4229): e4229. doi:10.7717/peerj.4229. PMC 5764036. PMID 29333348.


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