Araloselachus cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843)

Szabó, Márton & Kocsis, László, 2016, A preliminary report on the Early Oligocene (Rupelian, Kiscellian) selachians from the Kiscell Formation (Buda Mts, Hungary), with the re-discovery of Wilhelm Weiler’s shark teeth, Fragmenta Palaeontologica Hungarica 33, pp. 31-64 : 41-43

Araloselachus cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843)

(Figs 24–27)

1843 Lamna cuspidata n. sp. – AGASSIZ, p. 290, pl. 37a, figs 43–50.

1993 Carcharias cuspidata (Agassiz, 1843) – BAUT, p. 4, figs 22, 24.

1999 Carcharias cuspidata (Agassiz, 1844) – BAUT & GÉNAULT, pp. 15–16, pl. 3, figs 3–6.

2005 Carcharias cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843) – REINECKE et al., pp. 24–25, pl. 9, figs 1–7.

2007 Carcharias cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843) – KOCSIS, p. 32, pl. 4, figs 12–13.

2010 Carcharias cuspidata (Agassiz, 1843) – HOVESTADT et al., p. 60, figs 5–7.

2012 Araloselachus cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843) – CAPPETTA, p. 191, fig. 180.

2013 Carcharias cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843) – SCHULTZ, pp. 61–66, pl. 5, figs 5a, b.

2014 Araloselachus cuspidatus (Agassiz, 1843) – REINECKE et al., pp. 17–20, pls 16–18.

Referred material: 5 teeth (V.61.671., V.61.677F-I., VER 2016.3447.)

Remarks: The teeth are robust and massive among odontaspids. The cutting edges are smooth, they usually do not reach the tooth-crown boundary, except for some upper lateral-distal files (see below). The labial face is nearly flat, while the lingual is convex. The root is typically bifurcated with a large nutritive groove on a central bulge. The root-lobes are less angled on upper laterals. Anterior to lateral teeth could bear one or two pairs of relatively small and pointed cusplets. The lateral cusplets of the anteriors are typically circular in cross-section, while those of laterals and distals are labiolingually flattened. The anterior files have straight, narrow, high main cusp (Fig. 24). The crown of the lower laterals is also symmetrical, straight, and narrow, but these files are much lower than the anteriors. The upper laterals-distals are distally bent with low, triangular main crown. The cutting edge of these files sometimes continues in the cutting edges of the cusplets (Figs 25–27).

Odontaspids are common and widespread in many Paleogene and Neogene marine deposits. This species is widely known from Europe and North America, from the Lower Oligocene to the boundary of the Middle and Upper Miocene ( CAPPETTA 1987; HOLEC et al. 1995; REINECKE et al. 2014). WEILER (1933, p. 23 and 1938, p. 8) also reported the species from the Kiscell Clay as Odontaspis cuspidata .