1 42 Chapman, Cainozoic Shark in Victoria. J^W)T'xxx 



NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE CAINOZOIC 

 SHARK, CARCHAROIDES, IN VICTORIA. 



By Fredk. Chapman, A.L.S., Palaeontologist to the National 



Museum. 



(With text figure.) 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, i^thOct., 191 3.) 



Of the many interesting palaeontological links connecting the 

 Patagonian strata of South America with the Victorian and 

 South Australian deposits of Cainozoic age, not the least striking 

 is this present occurrence of the teeth of two species of the 

 shark referable to the genus Car char oides, Ameghino. One of 

 these species is new, whilst the other corresponds with 

 Ameghino 's C. totuserratus. 



The fact of this genus having hitherto been confined to the 

 Patagonian beds and now occurring in the well-known Waurn 

 Ponds quarries gives support to the opinion that both series 

 formed parts of the same sea-bed. 



Dr. F. Ameghino described the genus Carcharoides in 1906 * 

 in a footnote in his work on " Les Formations Sedimentaires 

 du Cretace Superieur et du Tertiaire de Patagonie." He 

 therein states that Carcharoides totuserratus has the teeth as 

 in Lamna, but with the denticulated edge as in Carcharodon. 



The Patagonian series has been regarded as of Lower Eocene 

 age by Ameghino. f His conclusions have been largely drawn 

 from an examination of the fishes, although other groups are 

 quoted, in his definition of the older Patagonian series as distinct 

 from the newer or Santacruzian, with mammalian remains. 

 As pointed out by Ortmann, { it is difiicult to subdivide this 

 series, which (as in Australia) is characterized by a persistent 

 or long time-range fauna. § Moreover, Ameghino has followed 

 Mercerat in separating five horizons by so unsatisfactory a 

 guide fossil as Ostrea. The fish fauna represented in Pata- 

 gonia is very similar in general aspect to that of the older series 

 in Victoria (the Barwonian), and the only element of discord in 

 the faunas from both areas is the presence of a few archaic 



* " Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires," ser. 3, vol. viii. See 

 p. 183 (foot-note) and fig. 50. 



■]• Op. cit., p. 498. 



+ " Reps., Princeton TTniv. Exped, Patagonia," 1896-Q9, vol. iv., pt. 2, 

 1902, p. 284 et seq. 



§ It may here be noted that the subaerial and fresh-water deposits 

 referred to as Santacruzian by Ameghino are correlated by that author 

 with his marine Suprapatagonian, and these, with the underlying Pata- 

 gonian series, are included in his Eocene. Ortmann has shown, how- 

 ever, that there is a distinct time-break between that series and the 

 Patagonian, which does not justify their inclusion in one epoch, as 

 Ameghino held. 



