First Snake-Like Shark Fossil Found in Morocco

File photo - Children look at a blacktip shark in an aquarium at 'Haus des Meeres' (Aqua Terra Zoo) in Vienna. REUTERS
File photo - Children look at a blacktip shark in an aquarium at 'Haus des Meeres' (Aqua Terra Zoo) in Vienna. REUTERS
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First Snake-Like Shark Fossil Found in Morocco

File photo - Children look at a blacktip shark in an aquarium at 'Haus des Meeres' (Aqua Terra Zoo) in Vienna. REUTERS
File photo - Children look at a blacktip shark in an aquarium at 'Haus des Meeres' (Aqua Terra Zoo) in Vienna. REUTERS

An international team of researchers has found the first skeletal remains of Phoebodus, an ancient shark, in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Ancient sharks that are long extinct left behind a lot of teeth, but a complete skeleton has never been found before. This is because their skeletons were made of soft cartilage instead of hard bone, so finding a full fossilized one can be so rare. In this new effort, the researchers announced in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society that they found a complete fossilized skeleton of Phoebodus, a shark that lived over 350 million years ago.

A report by the Science X Network on the discovery stated that "the shark fossil was found in a mountainous region of Morocco that had once been a shallow sea basin. The region's limited water circulation and low oxygen levels have created an environment that has preserved the fossil for future generations."

According to the report, prior to the find, the only evidence of Phoebodus was three teeth. The fossilized remains revealed that the specimens were approximately 360 to 370 million years old.

Study coauthor Christian Klug of the University of Zurich, said: "In studying the fossilized skeleton, we were able to see that the old shark had a long, slim body (almost like an eel), a flat skull and a long jaw," noting that it resembles the modern frilled sharks that still live in the sea but with small contrasts in their teeth.

The old shark teeth were pointed, rather than the more common serrated edges of current fish. Many modern sharks have serrated teeth that allow them to cut up their prey before ingesting the pieces. By contrast, the cone-shaped, inward-pointing teeth of Phoebodus and the frilled shark are only good for capturing prey and then swallowing it whole.



Droughts in Iraq Endanger Buffalo, and Farmers' Livelihoods

A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
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Droughts in Iraq Endanger Buffalo, and Farmers' Livelihoods

A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Iraq’s buffalo population has more than halved in a decade as the country's two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, suffer severe droughts that endanger the livelihood of many farmers and breeders.
"People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining," said farmer Sabah Ismail, 38, who rears buffalo in the southern province of Dhi Qar.
"The situation is difficult ... I had 120 to 130 buffalo; now I only have 50 to 60. Some died, and we sold some because of the drought," said Ismail while tending his herd.
Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk, and are mentioned in ancient Sumerian inscriptions from the region.
According to Iraqi marshland experts, the root causes of the water crisis driving farmers out of the countryside are climate change, upstream damming in Türkiye and Iran, outdated domestic irrigation techniques and a lack of long-term management plans.
The country has also endured decades of warfare.
Located within the cultivable lands known as the Fertile Crescent that have been farmed for millennia, the Iraqi landscape has suffered from upstream damming of the Tigris and Euphrates and lower rainfall, threatening the lifestyle of farmers like Ismail and leading many to move to the cities.
Iraqi marshland expert Jassim al-Assadi told Reuters that the number of buffalo in Iraq had fallen since 2015 from 150,000 to fewer than 65,000.
The decline is "mostly due to natural reasons: the lack of needed green pastures, pollution, illness ... and also farmers refraining from farming buffalos due to scarcity of income," al-Assadi said.
A drastic decline in crop production and a rise in fodder prices have also left farmers struggling to feed their animals.
The difficulty of maintaining a livelihood in Iraq's drought-stricken rural areas has contributed to growing migration towards the country's already-choked urban centers.
"This coming summer, God only knows, the mortality rate may reach half," said Abdul Hussain Sbaih, 39, an Iraqi buffalo breeder.