Ptychodus mortoni
Encyclopedia
Ptychodus mortoni was a shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

 believed to be about 10 m long that probably crushed and ate large shelled animals such as giant clam
Clam
The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...

s.
The bivalves that lived during this time included gigantic animals, possibly having extremely thick shells, such as the inoceramids (Volviceramus
Volviceramus
Volviceramus is an extinct genus of inoceramid bivalve mollusk from the Late Cretaceous of Europe and North America.-External links:* in the Paleobiology Database...

, Platyceramus
Platyceramus
Platyceramus was a genus of Cretaceous bivalve molluscs belonging to the extinct inoceramid lineage. It is sometimes classified as a subgenus of Inoceramus.The largest and best known species is P. platinus...

, etc...).
Given its large size, though, this species of Ptychodus might also have eaten ammonites and primitive turtles, like Desmatochelys
Desmatochelys
Desmatochelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle.- External links :*...

.
It is believed to have been a sluggish bottom-dwelling shark, rather than an actively fast swimmer. It lived about 89 million years ago (Turonian stage). Therefore, while only large numbers of its teeth, and jaw fragments are known, it might've resembled a massive nurse shark or a sand tiger shark.
Fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s have been found in the Western Interior Seaway
Western Interior Seaway
The Western Interior Seaway, also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, and the North American Inland Sea, was a huge inland sea that split the continent of North America into two halves, Laramidia and Appalachia, during most of the mid- and late-Cretaceous Period...

, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, USA.
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