Overview
- A team led by Cairo University paleontologist Tarek Yassin recovered 14 fossil shark teeth from a phosphate bed on the Abu‑Tartur Plateau, a discovery reported in Cretaceous Research on August 18, 2026.
- Researchers linked the teeth to five extinct taxa and raised the total species tally at the site to at least seven, with identifications including Cretalamna cf. maroccana, Scapanorhynchus cf. raphiodon, Serratolamna cf. serrata, Squalicorax bassanii and Squalicorax pristodontus.
- Two of the identified taxa were not previously recorded in Egypt and one Scapanorhynchus specimen may represent the first African and possibly the youngest known example, a claim the team presents as tentative and taxonomically sensitive.
- The tooth shapes range from needle‑like to broad and serrated, which the authors say indicates different feeding niches, and the fossils were recovered from a condensed, phosphate‑rich layer that represents a time‑averaged accumulation rather than a single mass mortality event.
- The study places Abu‑Tartur in a regional pattern of Late Cretaceous high productivity along the northern African margin, notes that phosphate mining both exposes and constrains access to these beds, and calls for further fieldwork and taxonomic study to refine ages and biogeographic links.