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Researchers have discovered the fossil of a Cretaceous shark with huge wing-like pectoral fins.
The "eagle shark" with the scientific name Aquilolamna milarcae swam through the ocean 93 million years ago, as the Bavarian State Natural Science Collections announced on Friday.
With its long pectoral fins it resembled today's manta rays and it probably “flew” through the seas like them.
In addition, like other sharks, it could swim with blows from its forked tail fin.
The prehistoric animal was discovered by a European-Mexican research team in a limestone quarry in northeast Mexico.
During its lifetime, the animal was only 1.70 meters long and had a pectoral fin span of 1.90 meters.
The broad, presumably with tiny teeth, sat at the end of the blunt head.
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"It is very likely that the 'eagle shark' was a plankton eater, similar to today's whale sharks or manta rays," suspects Wolfgang Stinnesbeck from the University of Heidelberg involved in the study.
The extraordinary find therefore gives a new insight into the evolutionary history of the sharks.
Body type previously unknown in sharks
The researchers describe the previously unknown physique in sharks as an "unexpected evolutionary experiment with underwater flight".
Wing-like pectoral fins in combination with the filtering of plankton from the water were previously only known from manta rays and their relatives.
However, these did not appear until 30 million years later in the history of the earth.
According to the scientists, the "underwater flight" with pectoral fins in plankton-eating sharks and rays apparently occurred twice in the course of evolution.
This happened accordingly in different ways but with the same result - namely "to fly plankton-being through the open ocean".
The research results were published in the science magazine "Science".