{"id":6582,"date":"2019-01-22T12:17:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T12:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/fossil-shark-named-after-80s-video-game\/"},"modified":"2019-01-22T12:17:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T12:17:58","slug":"fossil-shark-named-after-80s-video-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/fossil-shark-named-after-80s-video-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil shark named after 80s video game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n

\"Galagadon\"Image copyright<\/span>
\n Velizar Simeonovski, Field Museum<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>

Image caption<\/span>
\n
\n Artwork: Galagadon was a freshwater shark from the time of the dinosaurs
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A newly discovered species of ancient shark has been named after a 1980s arcade game.<\/p>\n

The shark swam in the rivers of what is now South Dakota, US, about 67 million years ago, living alongside iconic dinosaur species such as T. rex. <\/i><\/p>\n

It’s been named Galagadon<\/i>, after the 1981 Japanese-US game Galaga, because its teeth resemble the spaceships in the game.<\/p>\n

The specimen is described in the Journal of Paleontology.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image copyright<\/span>
\n Terry Gates, NC State University<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

“It may seem odd today, but about 67 million years ago, what is now South Dakota was covered in forests, swamps and winding rivers,” said co-author Terry Gates, from North Carolina State University.<\/p>\n

The tiny teeth – each measuring less than a millimetre across – were discovered in the sediment left behind when palaeontologists at the Field Museum in Chicago uncovered the bones of “Sue,” currently the most complete T. rex<\/i> specimen ever described.<\/p>\n

However, said Dr Gates, “Galagadon<\/i> was not swooping in to prey on T. rex<\/i>, Triceratops<\/i>, or any other dinosaurs that happened into its streams. This shark had teeth that were good for catching small fish or crushing snails and crawdads (crayfish).”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image copyright<\/span>
\n Nintendo<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>

Image caption<\/span>
\n
\n The teeth resemble the spaceships (bottom, white and red) in Galaga
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The classic arcade game, Galaga, pit insectoid alien spaceships against a spacecraft at the bottom of the screen – controlled by the player – which bears a strong resemblance to the shark teeth.<\/p>\n

Galagadon nordquistae<\/i>, as it has been named, was relatively small – about 30cm (12ins) to 45cm (18ins) – and was related to modern carpet sharks, such as the wobbegong.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Velizar Simeonovski, Field Museum Image caption Artwork: Galagadon was a freshwater shark from the time of the dinosaurs A newly discovered species of ancient shark has been named after a 1980s arcade game. The shark swam in the rivers of what is now South Dakota, US, about 67 million years ago, living alongside … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}