Description
Otodus is an extinct, cosmopolitan genus of mako shark that lived from the Paleocene to the Pliocene. The name Otodus comes from the Ancient Greek ὠτ- (ōt-, meaning "ear") and ὀδούς (odoús, meaning "tooth") – thus "ear-shaped tooth." Otodus was likely the apex predator of its time, commonly preying on fish, sea turtles, cetaceans (e.g., whales), and sirenians. There is also potential evidence that Otodus preyed on predatory sperm whales; A tooth belonging to an undetermined 4-meter-long physeteroid closely resembling that of Acrophyseter, discovered at the Nutrien Aurora Phosphate Mine in North Carolina, suggests that a megalodon or O. chubutensis may have aimed for the sperm whale's head to deliver a fatal bite, with the resulting attack leaving distinctive bite marks on the tooth. While scavenging behavior cannot be ruled out as a possibility, the placement of the bite marks is more consistent with predatory attacks than scavenging, as the jaw is not a particularly nutritious area for a shark to feed or concentrate on. The fact that the bite marks were found on the roots of the tooth further suggests that the shark fractured the whale's jaw during the bite, indicating that the bite was exceptionally powerful. The fossil is also notable for being the first known example of an antagonistic interaction between a sperm whale and an otodontid shark recorded in the fossil record.
