''Sarcoprion'' (from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

for "flesh saw") is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of eugeneodontid

holocephalid Holocephali ("complete heads"), sometimes given the term Euchondrocephali, is a subclass of cartilaginous fish in the class Chondrichthyes. The earliest fossils are of teeth and come from the Devonian period. Little is known about these primit ...

s from the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Pale ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...

. Similar to other eugeneodontids such as ''

Edestus ''Edestus'' is an extinct genus of edestoid cartilaginous fish known from the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) of the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States. Most remains consist of isolated curved blades or "whorls" that are studded wi ...

'' and ''

Helicoprion ''Helicoprion'' is an extinct genus of shark-like eugeneodont fish. Almost all fossil specimens are of spirally arranged clusters of the individuals' teeth, called "tooth whorls", which in life were embedded in the lower jaw. As with most exti ...

'', it was best known for its extremely bizarre tooth morphology compared to other species of sharks and their closest relatives, the

chimaera Chimaeras are cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes , known informally as ghost sharks, rat fish, spookfish, or rabbit fish; the last three names are not to be confused with rattails, Opisthoproctidae, or Siganidae, respectively. A ...

s. Compared to other members of the

Helicoprionidae The Helicoprionidae, also known as the Agassizodontidae are an extinct, poorly known family of bizarre holocephalids within the poorly understood order Eugeneodontida. Members of the Helicoprionidae possessed a unique "tooth-whorl" on the symph ...

(teeth of Agassiz), its "tooth whorls" were found to be sharper, more compact, and in better condition than other sharks of the time, and refrained from growing to extremely unwieldy forms that would raise questions about its ability to feed properly. The genus contains one species, ''Sarcoprion edax'' ("gluttonous flesh saw"), found in Permian-aged marine strata of ''Meddelelser om Grønland''.

Description

''Sarcoprion'' had a jaw and mouth structure which allowed it to be more hydrodynamic, reducing the size and shape of the tooth whorl and increasing the size of the rostrum. ''Sarcoprion'' is thought to have pursued smaller, fast-moving prey similar to today's

mako shark ''Isurus'' is a genus of mackerel sharks in the family Lamnidae, commonly known as the mako sharks. Description The two living species are the common shortfin mako shark (''I. oxyrinchus'') and the rare longfin mako shark (''I. paucus''). They ...

. Estimations on its size suggested an average length of from the two specimens discovered in

Paleobiology

Using the compact tooth whorl during hunting, ''Sarcoprion'' hunted a large variety of species, diving at them with high speed and sawing vulnerable areas.A. Peter Kimley, 1996 Any creatures that were wedged between its rostrum and its teeth were vertically thrashed to inflict maximum damage.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7423620 Permian fish of North America Agassizodontidae Prehistoric cartilaginous fish genera Permian cartilaginous fish Fossil taxa described in 1952