Carcharodon (from Ancient Greek κάρχαρος (kárkharos), meaning "sharp, jagged", and ὀδούς (odoús), meaning "tooth", and thus, "sharp tooth/jagged tooth") is a genus of sharks within the family Lamnidae, colloquially called the "white sharks". The only extant member is the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Extinct species include C. hubbelli and C. hastalis. The first appearance of the genus in the fossil record may have been as early as the Late Oligocene, but certainly by the Early Miocene.
Fossil history and evolution
The fossil ancestry of Carcharodon is an active area of research and debate, given the dearth of the fossil record and the incompleteness of found specimens. Most Carcharodon fossil remains of are in the form of teeth, along with some vertebral centra. This is the norm for fossilized Chondrichthyans, since a shark's skeleton is made of cartilage and soft tissues don't preserve well. Thus, assessing relationships between fossil species relies largely on the form of their teeth. This difficulty is compounded by the incomplete fossil record of Lamnids. However, some researchers have proffered Macrorhizodus, Isurolamna, and Cretalamna as candidates for genera ancestral to Carcharodon, taxa ranging from the Eocene to the Cretaceous.Martin, A. P. (1996). "Systematics of the Lamnidae and the Origination Time of Carcharodon carcharias Inferred from the Comparative Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA Sequences". In Klimley, A. P.; Ainley, D. G. (eds.). Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias. Academic Press. pp. 49–53. Though Cretalamna was proposed assuming Carcharodon descended from Otodus (Carcharocles), a now disfavored theory.
The earliest records of Carcharodon purportedly occur in the Late Oligocene but certainly in the Early Miocene.Kocsis, L. 2007. Central Paratethyan shark fauna (Ipolytarnóc, Hungary). In Geologica Carpathica, vol. 58, no.1, pp. 27-40. 1335-0552. These records include specimens from southern Peru and northeastern Hungary. This assumes that the genus Cosmopolitodus is synonymous with Carcharodon (see further discussion below).
Carcharodon is well-represented in the fossil record by the Middle Miocene. The first widespread, cosmopolitan species being C. hastalis, with fossils recovered from North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The modern great white shark has been posited to have evolved from C. hastalis through a transitional species, C. hubbelli. This is seen in the gradual development of serrations on the cutting edges of their teeth around the time of the Miocene-Pliocene boundary circa 5 million years ago. This adaptation plausibly made the dentition of C. hubbelli-carcharias more efficient at consuming marine mammals compared to the smooth-edged teeth of Late Miocene forms of C. hastalisDana J. Ehret, Bruce J. MacFadden, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi (2009), "Caught in the act: Trophic interactions between a 4-million-year-old white shark (Carcharodon) and mysticete whale from Peru," Palaios, 24(5), 329–333.; though there is ample evidence that C. hastalis still fed on marine mammals.Stephen J. Godfrey, Victor J. Perez, Marcus Jones, Phillip F. Chapman, Nathan Spencer, and Jason E. Osborne. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 70 (2), 2025: 329-337 doi:10.4202/app.01241.2025
Study of white shark taxonomy is complicated by nomenclature and repeated taxonomic reassignments of various species. C. hastalis, I. subserratus, and C. planus traditionally were placed in Isurus, given their superficial similarity to the teeth of mako sharks. They were later reassigned to a new genus, Cosmopolitodus,Glikman, L. S. (1964). "Sharks of the Paleogene their stratigraphic significance." Nakua Press, Moscow, 229 pp. [Russian] a genus maintained as valid in some current literature, and considered a junior synonym of Carcharodon in others.Yun, C. (2021). "A tooth of the extinct lamnid shark, Cosmopolitodus planus comb. nov. (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from the Miocene of Pohang City, South Korea" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Romaniae. 18 (1): 9–16. S2CID 242113412. C. hastalis has also been described as two morphotypes, "broad-form" and "narrow-form," which some authors have split into two species, C. plicatilis (xiphodon) and C. hastalis, respectively.Whitenack, L. B. and Gottfried, M. D. (2010). "A morphometric approach for addressing tooth-based species delimitation in fossil Mako sharks, Isurus (Elasmobranchii, Lamniformes)." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30, 17–25.Cione A. L., Cabrera D. A., et al (2012). "Oldest record of the Great White Shark (Lamnidae, Carcharodon; Miocene) in the Southern Atlantic", Geobios 45, 167-172
I. subserratus, historically known as C. escheri under the genus Carcharomodus,Kriwet, J., Mewis, H., and Hampe, O. 2015. A partial skeleton of a new lamniform mackerel shark from the Miocene of Europe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60 (4): 857–875. has recently been reclassified back in to the genus Carcharodon as C. subserratus,Godfrey, Stephen J., ed. (2018-09-25). "The Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA". Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology (100): 2–274. ISSN 1943-6688. and then again into Isurus.De Schutter, P.J. & Van der Vliet, R. & Bor, T. (2021) Dental evolution of the 'serrated' mako shark, Isurus subserratus aka I. escheri (Chondrichthyes, Lamnidae) in the late Neogene of the North Sea Basin. Cainozoic Research, 21(2), 173–192
The fossil "mega-toothed" sharks like Megalodon have also traditionally been placed in Carcharodon, but most current literature refutes this position, placing mega-toothed sharks in a separate family, Otodontidae, and genus, Otodus (Carcharocles).Kent, B. W. (2018). "The Cartilaginous Fishes (Chimaeras, Sharks, and Rays) of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, USA". In Godfrey, S. J. (ed.). The Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. The Smithsonian Institution. pp. 45–157. ISSN 1943-6688. S2CID 134274604.
In 1876, fossils of a shark species referred to as the possible ancestor of the modern Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) were named Carcharodon caifassii by the paleontologist Maurice Leriche. C. caifassii is now placed as a probable junior synonym of C. carcharias due to the lack of sufficient diagnostic fossils.
Species Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus, 1758) (the great white shark) †Carcharodon carcharias-f (Lawley, 1876) †Carcharodon hubbelli (Ehret et al., 2012) (Hubbell's white shark) †Carcharodon hastalis? (Agassiz, 1843)Agassiz, L. J. R. 1833–1844. Recherches sur les poisons fossiles. Text (5 vols; I., xlix + 188 pp., II xii + 310 + 366 pp., III viii+390pp., IV xvi+296pp., V xii+122+160pp.) and Atlas. Imprimerie de Petitpierre, Neuchâtel. †Carcharodon planus? (Agassiz, 1856)Agassiz, L., 1856. Notice on the fossil fishes found in California by W.P. Blake. American Journal of Science and Arts, Series 2, 21: 272–275. †Carcharodon subserratus (escheri)? (Agassiz, 1843) †Carcharodon plicatilis (xiphodon)? (Agassiz, 1843) †Carcharodon caifassii (Lawley, 1876)
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