Seventy million years ago, the ground under Egypt’s New Valley was open water — and, it turns out, crowded water. Researchers at Cairo University have documented seven extinct shark species from fossil teeth recovered at the Abu Tartur plateau in the Western Desert, evidence of a Late Cretaceous marine ecosystem rich enough to support predators at every scale, Ahram Online reported on Monday.
The count is precise because the evidence is: 63 fossil teeth documented across two studies — 49 in the first, 14 in the second — belonging to five genera. The roster reads like a Cretaceous field guide: Scapanorhynchus, Cretoxyrhina, Cretalamna, Serratolamna and two species of Squalicorax. Some of the Scapanorhynchus specimens indicate animals reaching approximately 6.7 metres in length — longer than a modern great white.
Finding teeth belonging to seven different shark species was particularly remarkable, especially because they were all discovered in the same location. — Tarek Yassin, Cairo University geology student
Why one site with seven species matters
A single tooth tells you an animal existed. Sixty-three teeth from seven species in one place tell you about an ecosystem. Diversity like that requires a food web underneath it — prey species, nursery grounds, stable conditions over long stretches of time. Mohamed Abdel-Gawad of Cairo University, the corresponding author, put the significance plainly: Abu Tartur was “not just a transient marine environment, but a home to a rich and diverse marine system.”
The work spans two peer-reviewed publications — the first in Historical Biology in 2024, documenting the site’s lamniform sharks, and the second in Cretaceous Research in August 2026, describing five additional species. Collaborators on the research include scientists from the University of Zurich and other Swiss institutions, and every specimen is housed at Cairo University’s Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory.
Egypt’s deep-time coastline
Egypt’s deserts are among the world’s great archives of vanished seas. The Valley of the Whales at Wadi El-Hitan — a UNESCO World Heritage site — preserves early whales from a later chapter of the same story. Abu Tartur, better known economically for its phosphate deposits, now adds a shark-rich Cretaceous chapter of its own. The phosphates and the fossils are related: both are legacies of productive, nutrient-rich ancient waters.
For Cairo University the find is also an institutional statement. The specimens were collected, described and curated domestically, with the lead analysis done by Egyptian researchers and a geology student sharing the byline — the kind of pipeline that turns a fossil site into a training ground.
What a tooth can tell you
Shark skeletons are cartilage and rarely fossilise, which makes teeth the currency of shark palaeontology — and an unusually informative currency. A tooth’s shape records its owner’s diet: the slender, snagging teeth of Scapanorhynchus point to fish-hunting in deeper water, while the blade-like teeth of Squalicorax mark a cutting feeder with a scavenger’s opportunism. Size scales with the animal, which is how a 6.7-metre estimate can be responsibly built from dental remains. Assemble 63 such data points from one horizon of rock and the result is not a list of species but a reconstructed food web.
The two-study arc also shows how such sites mature. The 2024 Historical Biology paper established the site’s lamniform sharks; the August 2026 Cretaceous Research study added five further species from continued collecting. Fossil localities are not discovered so much as compounded — each field season either confirms a site as a one-off or, as at Abu Tartur, promotes it into a reference locality that researchers will revisit for decades.
There is a wider Egyptian pattern here worth naming. From Wadi El-Hitan’s whales to Bahariya’s dinosaurs and now Abu Tartur’s sharks, the Western Desert keeps yielding world-class palaeontology to teams anchored in Egyptian universities — a run of results that quietly builds the case for the geoparks and site museums that turn scientific heritage into visitable heritage.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly was found at Abu Tartur?
Sixty-three fossil shark teeth representing seven extinct species from five genera, dating to the Late Cretaceous — more than 70 million years ago.
How big were these sharks?
The largest, of the genus Scapanorhynchus, are estimated at approximately 6.7 metres based on tooth dimensions.
Where are the fossils now?
All specimens are housed at Cairo University’s Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, and the findings are published in Historical Biology (2024) and Cretaceous Research (2026).
Why was this area underwater?
During the Late Cretaceous, high global sea levels pushed the Tethys Ocean across much of North Africa, submerging what is now the Western Desert beneath warm, productive shelf waters. The marine sediments that sea left behind — including the phosphate beds Abu Tartur is mined for today — preserve the animals that lived and died in it, which is why remote desert plateaus in Egypt keep yielding fossil sharks, marine reptiles and shell beds rather than anything resembling desert species.
