An ancient sea was hidden beneath the sands of the Sahara. Scientists discovered a cemetery of prehistoric sharks

Today, looking at Egypt's Western Desert, it is hard to imagine that a warm, life-filled sea once stretched across the same spot. Instead of endless sand dunes, sharks, fish, and other marine predators swam here more than 70 million years ago. And it is their remains that are now helping scientists uncover what this ancient world looked like.

Fossilized teeth of prehistoric sharks were found in the Abu-Tartur area of southwestern Egypt. Researchers analyzed fourteen teeth and managed to identify at least five extinct species. Together with previously known finds, this site thus indicates the presence of at least seven different shark species. Some of them had not been recorded in Egypt at all until now.

The find comes from rocks of the Duwi Formation, which formed during the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 83 to 72 million years ago. At that time, North Africa looked completely different from today. Global sea levels were much higher, and vast parts of today's Sahara were covered by the sea. Abu-Tartur was thus not an arid desert, but part of a warm marine environment that provided ample food for a variety of creatures.

The teeth found by scientists are much more than just small fossils. For sharks, their dentition is one of the best ways to identify their ancient relatives. A shark's skeleton is made of cartilage, which usually does not preserve well after death. However, teeth are hard and can survive tens of millions of years. Their shape, size, and structure therefore allow paleontologists to determine which species they once belonged to.

Among the discovered fossils, for example, a representative of the genus Scapanorhynchus appeared, which is related to today's unusual goblin shark. It is known for its long snout, protrusible jaws, and long, sharp teeth. Its prehistoric relative lived in a completely different world, but some features of this evolutionary lineage have persisted to the present day.

Scientists also identified representatives of the genera Cretalamna, Serratolamna, and Squalicorax. Some of these findings represent the first known fossil records of these sharks from Egypt. One of the findings of the genus Scapanorhynchus may even be the first known evidence of this taxon in Africa.

The designation "shark graveyard" itself does not mean that hundreds of sharks died here all at once. Fossils could have accumulated in the sediments gradually over a very long period. Nevertheless, their presence tells us something fundamental about the environment at that time. The area was part of a marine ecosystem rich in nutrients and organic material, which could support an extensive food web. In such an environment, fish and other marine animals could thrive, which in turn provided food for larger predators.

And sharks were among them. It is fascinating to imagine that in a place where today one sees only hot sand and rocks, predators once swam in an ocean at a time when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Sharks already existed in immense diversity back then, and some of their evolutionary lineages were tens of millions of years old.

Since then, the world has changed almost beyond recognition. The sea receded, the climate changed, and the former seabed gradually became today's desert. The sharks that once lived here have long disappeared, and their world has become history. Yet, something remains of them.

Small, sharp teeth hidden in the Egyptian rocks.

And thanks to them, we can glimpse a time when today's Sahara was part of the ocean.

It is another reminder of the incredibly long story that sharks have written. While human history is counted in thousands of years, their story began hundreds of millions of years before us. The sea has changed several times, continents have shifted, and entire ecosystems have disappeared. But sharks have remained.

And perhaps that is why the sight of their fossils is so fascinating. They are not just the remains of an ancient predator. They are small proof that places we know today as deserts, mountains, or land, could once have been a completely different world.

So, beneath the sands of the Sahara, an ocean still hides. Not a real one, but the one that existed tens of millions of years ago. And its sharks still tell us their story through a few fossilized teeth.

Author: Miri Svobodová

Source: Cretaceous Research – research on fossil sharks from the Duwi Formation in the Abu-Tartur area, Egypt