Cretaceous Selachians 
81 
teeth, anterior, lateral and posterior, from both upper and lower jaws. 
Sites 1 and 3. 
Description. — Teeth of large size, averaging between 2 and 5 cm in 
height from root tip to blade tip; upper and lower teeth are similar. The 
anterior teeth of both jaws are elongate and sigmoidal, with or without 
minute, sigmoidal lateral cusplets,with long striae on the lingual face of 
the blade. The antero-lateral and lateral teeth are more flattened on their 
labial and lingual faces and bear one or two lateral cusplets which differ 
from those of the anterior teeth in being flattened and spade-like. Long 
striae are seldom observed on the lingual face of the anterolateral, lateral, 
or posterior teeth, but the beginning of a striation pattern can be observed 
at the blade apron near the root on the labial face of well-preserved 
specimens. 
Discussion : — Scapanorhynchus texanus is a very common and ubiquitous 
species in the Late Cretaceous of North America. It is most abundant in 
the Late Campanian to Middle Maestrichtian of New Jersey and Texas, 
and has recently been discovered in Late Campanian outcrops northeast 
of Taroudannt, Morocco (Pierre Zennaro, pers. comm.). 
Until recently the description of teeth from the various mouth positions 
in Scapanorhynchus was quite haphazard, with numerous assignments to 
various erroneous genera, causing quite a problem with synonymic 
nomenclature in the literature. Capetta and Case (1975) compared the 
fossil teeth of Scapanorhynchus with those in the jaws of the modern “goblin 
shark,” Mitsukunna owstom. The teeth are basically the same, position for 
position, except that many teeth of Mitsukunna are devoid of lateral ac- 
cessory cusplets. Consequently Mitsukunna has been relegated to syn- 
onomy and the living species should be cited as Scapanorhynchus owstom 
(Jordan) (Bass et al. 1975:18). Now that the problem of differences be- 
tween teeth from different positions has been cleared up, future authors 
should be able to assign occurrences correctly to Scapanorhynchus and avoid 
further synonymic confusion. 
Scapanorhynchus texanus also occurs in the Black Creek Formation (Cam- 
panian) at Phoebus Landing on the Cape Fear River, Bladen County, 
North Carolina. The specimens, however, were mistakenly assigned to 
the Tertiary genera Carchanas and Isurus by Miller (1967:223, Figs. 1-5). 
Family ODONTASPIDAE 
Odontaspis Agassiz, 1838 
Odontaspis sp. 
Material : — PU 22422, a lower antero-lateral tooth (Figs. 13-14); about 
two dozen anterior and lateral teeth from both upper and lower jaws. Site 1. 
