Spared the dual problems of the K-T disaster and competition with cetaceans, the sharks of this world are larger and more speciose than those of our Earth.

    Save for a handful of large teleosts, cephalopods and saurocetaceans, the sharks dominate most of the big marine predatory guilds and, as in our oceans, play a vital role as marine scavengers. At the other extreme, one group of sharks have become tiny, finless endoparasites of giant cephalopods.

    But perhaps the most striking feature of this world's shark fauna are the great variety of oceanic filter-feeders. These include giant lamniforms, hexanchiforms and squaliforms but, surprisingly, the orectolobiformes have not produced such an animal as they have in our world.
 

(Text by Brian Choo)

LAMNIFORMES

SAMPLE TAXA:

Antarctic Yawn

SQUALIFORMES

SAMPLE TAXA:

• Mudshark