Comment on “An early Miocene extinction in pelagic sharks”

I. Feichtinger (1) , S. Adnet (2) , G. Cuny (3) , G. Guinot (2) , J. Kriwet (4) , T.A. Neubauer (5) , J. Pollerspöck (6) , K. Shimada (7) , N. Straube (8) , C. Underwood (9) , Romain Vullo (10) , M. Harzhauser (1)

1 NHM - Natural History Museum [Vienna]
2 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
3 P3E - Équipe 6 - Paléontologie, Paléoécologie, Paléobiogéographie, Évolution
4 University of Vienna [Vienna]
5 JLU - Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen = Justus Liebig University
6 Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
7 DePaul University [Chicago]
8 UiB - University of Bergen
9 Birkbeck College [University of London]
10 GR - Géosciences Rennes

Sibert and Rubin (Reports, 4 June 2021, p. 1105) claim to have identified a previously unidentified, major extinction event of open-ocean sharks in the early Miocene. We argue that their interpretations are based on an experimental design that does not account for a considerable rise in the sedimentation rate coinciding with the proposed event, nor for intraspecific variation in denticle morphology.

Domains: Paleontology; Environmental Sciences

I. Feichtinger, S. Adnet, G. Cuny, G. Guinot, J. Kriwet, et al.. Comment on “An early Miocene extinction in pelagic sharks”. Science, 2021, 374 (6573), ⟨10.1126/science.abk0632⟩. ⟨insu-03476962⟩