South African palaeontologists have unveiled the discovery of a fossil of a new species of prehistoric fish of the genus Hyneria.
We usually think of sharks when we think of deep waters and their predators. Only here, 95% of the oceans have not yet been exploited by humans so who knows what is still hiding in the abyss.
While sharks obviously sit at the top of the aquatic food chain, they pale in comparison to their ancestors and other prehistoric sea monsters.
Indeed, science has revealed the diversity of aquatic super predators that lived during prehistory, like the megalodon.
But it is another species of predatory fish that interests us today with the discovery revealed by South African palaeontologists. Indeed, researchers from Rhodes University in South Africa have discovered the fossil of a new species of prehistoric fish of the genus Hyneria.
The Hyneria, great prehistoric rival of the shark
These marine predators could grow over three meters and had huge sharp teeth. In their study, published in the journal PLOS, they identified this new species, called Hyneria Udlezinye, from an assemblage of several fossils from Waterloo Farm, a fossil-rich area in Cape Province, South Africa. .
According to them, this prehistoric predator could measure between two meters fifty and three meters seventy and had “unusually large fangs” at the level of its lower jaw.
Hyneria Udlezinye had “a mouth containing rows of small teeth, but also a pair of large fangs which could probably reach five centimeters in the largest specimens”.
This species of fish lived in the oceans during the Late Devonian period, around 383 to 359 million years ago. It was a fierce competitor to the shark , which had been on Earth for 430 million years.
