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FOSSILS ET AL.
Forgotten Shark Jaws Are Now a Goldmine for Ocean Science
How a new study unlocked decades of hidden data from preserved shark and ray jaws in museum collections
Years ago, while helping catalog specimens at a natural history museum, I remember unboxing a jaw. After decades in the museum collection, it was yellowed and a little chipped, but still fierce-looking.
It had been in storage since the 1980s, labeled with a handwritten tag and with no backstory beyond where it was caught. I remember thinking, “If only you could talk.” Like many others, that jaw was carefully stored, hoping it would someday help scientists advance our understanding of life on Earth.
Fast forward to now, and it turns out that those jaws can talk. Scientists just hadn’t asked the right questions yet.
led by Dr Laura Holmes at Flinders University, in collaboration with the University of Tasmania, flips the script on how we think about shark jaws in museum and private collections.
Published in , the study confirms that even chemically treated jaws — cleaned with ethanol, bleach, or hydrogen peroxide — can still be used for stable isotope analysis.
