Resurrecting the Shark

February 13, 2017
Ewing (The Great Alaska Nature Factbook), a nature writer and children’s author, shares the century-long story of scientific investigation that resulted in the discovery of Helicoprion, “one of the largest predatory fish in the global oceans, the top of the food chain for ten to fifteen million years.” Since the 1880s, when a bizarre fossil of what appeared to be a prehistoric shark was found in Australia, scientists have been attempting to figure out what this animal looked like and how it functioned. The fossil itself was so confusing—a round plate with whorls of “fourteen serrated points”—that the world’s best paleontologists argued for years over whether the points were fish-spines or teeth. The whorl of points turned out to be a single curved tooth fixed to the fish’s bottom jaw, much like a buzz saw. Ewing focuses on the group that solved the problem in 2013 while also providing accessible background material on basic geology, paleontology, taxonomy, and the scientific method. The details of shark anatomy can feel overwhelming, but Ewing brings to life the personalities of those who wrestled with these fossils to reveal “the beautiful, frustrating, addictive, rewarding way” that research works. Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore and Company.

February 15, 2017
Excavating the history of the "one-in-a-billion buzz saw shark."Ewing (The Great Alaska Nature Factbook: A Guide to the State's Remarkable Animals, Plants, and Natural Features, 2011 etc.) begins her complex, excessively detailed tale with the invitation by an artist friend, Ray Troll, to attend an exhibit titled "The Whorl Tooth Sharks of Idaho," which featured his work. The author was captivated by a life-size reconstruction on exhibit at the museum featuring a "bizarre extinct shark, Helicoprion," a prehistoric creature that hunted the oceans some 270 to 280 million years ago. Ewing describes the fossil as a "big brown slab of rock" that was "about the size of a bicycle wheel" and bore the imprint of a logarithmic spiral. In 1993, while conducting research, Troll, a "paleo-fish enthusiast," had visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and became intrigued by the Helicoprion fossil he found in the basement; he began sketching his vision of how the now-extinct shark might have looked when it was alive. Another fossil was discovered in 2010 in the basement of the Idaho Museum of Natural History by an Idaho State student who was cataloging Ice Age mammals. Ewing relates that find to an earlier discovery of the Helicoprion in the 1880s, which occurred in Russia and was described in an 1899 monograph. The author labels this the dawn of the discipline of paleoecology, when researchers established "the geological ground rule that unique fossil sets in rock layers succeed one another." The fossil set off a debate among scientists about what the fossil represented, "a spiral of teeth" or "a fin spine." By 1905, there were 44 scholarly papers from the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan that contributed to the debate; in 1912, it was ultimately resolved in favor of the teeth hypothesis. A carefully annotated scientific detective story that suffers from an overabundance of detail but benefits from 24 pages of lively photos.

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February 15, 2017

A weird creature from deep time comes alive in this engaging account of Helicoprion, the "buzz saw" shark, which patrolled the seas around the supercontinent Gondwana some 270 to 280 million years ago. Since the first fossil fragment was discovered in the 1880s in Australia, a paleontological mystery has centered on the animal's tooth whorl--a feature resembling a circular saw blade, with as many as 150 teeth. As more (and more complete) fossils were found, scientists wrestled with problems concerning the location and mechanics of the whorl and with questions about where (or if) the animal fit into sharks' evolutionary tree. While the shark itself fascinates, Ewing (Great Alaska Nature Factbook) tells an equally interesting story about the development of paleontology, highlighting its important early contributors. The fossil riddle was finally solved a few years back by a crack team of scientists, an engineer, and an artist--yes, an artist: Alaskan painter and self-described "paleo fish-freak" Ray Troll, who not only pictured the fabulous beast but also was a catalyst in assembling the players and, evidently, in powering the effort. VERDICT Ewing blows the dust off dry scientific reportage with her lively style and wit. Her book should have broad appeal to a wide range of readers--sharks, of course, are a cultural phenomenon, and paleo sharks only double the fun.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

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