The origin and evolutionary biology of pinnipeds: seals, sea lions, and walruses

A Berta, M Churchill… - Annual Review of Earth …, 2018 - annualreviews.org
The oldest definitive pinniped fossils date from approximately 30.6–23 million years ago
(Ma) in the North Pacific. Pinniped monophyly is consistently supported; the group shares a …

Predation in the marine fossil record: studies, data, recognition, environmental factors, and behavior

AA Klompmaker, PH Kelley, D Chattopadhyay… - Earth-science …, 2019 - Elsevier
The fossil record is the primary source of data used to study predator-prey interactions in
deep time and to evaluate key questions regarding the evolutionary and ecological …

Trophic position of Otodus megalodon and great white sharks through time revealed by zinc isotopes

J McCormack, ML Griffiths, SL Kim, K Shimada… - Nature …, 2022 - nature.com
Diet is a crucial trait of an animal's lifestyle and ecology. The trophic level of an organism
indicates its functional position within an ecosystem and holds significance for its ecology …

Cenozoic megatooth sharks occupied extremely high trophic positions

ER Kast, ML Griffiths, SL Kim, ZC Rao, K Shimada… - Science …, 2022 - science.org
Trophic position is a fundamental characteristic of animals, yet it is unknown in many extinct
species. In this study, we ground-truth the 15N/14N ratio of enameloid-bound organic matter …

The extinct shark Otodus megalodon was a transoceanic superpredator: Inferences from 3D modeling

JA Cooper, JR Hutchinson, DC Bernvi, G Cliff… - Science …, 2022 - science.org
Although shark teeth are abundant in the fossil record, their bodies are rarely preserved.
Thus, our understanding of the anatomy of the extinct Otodus megalodon remains …

Taphonomy of marine vertebrates of the Pisco Formation (Miocene, Peru): Insights into the origin of an outstanding Fossil-Lagerstätte

G Bosio, A Collareta, C Di Celma, O Lambert… - PLoS …, 2021 - journals.plos.org
The Miocene Pisco Formation, broadly exposed in the Ica Desert of southern Peru, is among
the most outstanding Cenozoic marine Fossil-Lagerstätten worldwide. It is renowned for its …

[LLIBRE][B] The ichnology of vertebrate consumption: dentalites, gastroliths and bromalites

AP Hunt, SG Lucas - 2021 - books.google.com
There is a long tradition of indirectly inferring feeding in fossil and Recent vertebrates from
the functional morphology of bones and teeth. However, some trace fossils provide direct …

Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction

JA Cooper, C Pimiento, HG Ferrón, MJ Benton - Scientific reports, 2020 - nature.com
Inferring the size of extinct animals is fraught with danger, especially when they were much
larger than their modern relatives. Such extrapolations are particularly risky when allometry …

Investigating biotic interactions in deep time

D Fraser, LC Soul, AB Tóth, MA Balk, JT Eronen… - Trends in Ecology & …, 2021 - cell.com
Recent renewed interest in using fossil data to understand how biotic interactions have
shaped the evolution of life is challenging the widely held assumption that long-term climate …

The evolution of foraging capacity and gigantism in cetaceans

JA Goldbogen, PT Madsen - Journal of Experimental Biology, 2018 - journals.biologists.com
The extant diversity and rich fossil record of cetaceans provides an extraordinary
evolutionary context for investigating the relationship between form, function and ecology …