Distribution Geographic
type locality: Ocoya creek (posé creek), Sierra Nevada, California [26];
other localities: Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina PURDY et. al. 2001 p. 86 [1964]; REINECKE et. al., 2011 p 13, Werder-Uesen, northwestern Lower Saxony, Germany [13836]; Huelva City, SW Spain [pers. comment Antonio Toscano Grande, Universidad de Huelva];


Distribution of Echinorhinidae show google map

Distribution Strategraphy
Temblor Formation, Round Mountain Silt, upper Member, Sharktooth Hill bone-bed horrizon [2517]; Pungo River Formation PURDY et. al. 2001 p. 86 [1964]; REINECKE et. al., 2011 p. 13, Lower Mica Fine Sand Formation, late Burdigalian, Miocene [13836]; Gibraleón Clays Formation (Fm. Arcillas de Gibraleón), Messinian, [pers. comment Antonio Toscano Grande, Universidad de Huelva];

Material
PURDY et. al. 2001 p. 86 [1964]: 13 complete teeth and fragments of teeth, USNM 207608, 207609, 280334, 281317, 281331, 287739, 287740, 412221, 457232-57236; REINECKE et. al., 2011 p 13, 4 teeth [13836]; Antonio Toscano Grande, 2014: 1 tooth

Description
Original diagnose after AGASSIZ 1856 [26]: Echinorhinus Blakei, Agassiz.—One of the most interesting and important discoveries since the publication of the "Poissons Fossiles” is that of the tooth of the genus Echinorhinus, in the tertiary deposits of Ocoya creek (Posé creek), at the western base of the Sierra Nevada, California. The genus Echinorhinus was founded by Blainville for the Squalus spinosus of Linnaeus, the only species of the genus thus far known which inhabits the Mediteranean and the European and African coasts of the Atlantic. I figured the teeth of the same genus under the name of Goniodus for the same species, (see Poissons Fossiles, vol. III, p. 94, pl. E, fig. 13,) so that this name must give way to the Echinorhinus of Blainville. The discovery of a fossil species of this genus in the tertiaries of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is not only important as carrying back this curious type of sharks to a period older than ours, but also in disclosing the existence upon the American continent of types in a fossil state known in the old world only among the living. The fossil species of Echinorhinus differs from the living, having the main point of the tooth more prominent, and at the same time shorter, an appearance which arises from the less prominence of the marginal denticles. This difference may be distinctly seen by comparing the figures with those of the living species given in Poissons Fossiles, pl. E, fig. 13." Diagnosis after WELTON, 1979 [2517]: - no more than two mesial and distal cusplets; - cusp erect, mesial notch usually well developed; - distal notch well developed and distally extended as in E. cookei; - mesial cutting ridge of cusp coarsely serrated and irregular in outline, all other cutting ridges finely serrated; - lingual transverse ridges on crown foot weakly developed or usually absent

Discussion
WELTON, 1979 [2517] guess that the type locality is the Sharktooth Hill ("Round Mountain Silt, upper Member, Sharktooth Hill bonebed horizon (Mitchell, 1965:4 and Lawrence G. Barnes, personal communication). Although neither Blake nor Agassiz ever designated a formal 1ithostratigraphic unit from which the teeth were collected (because none existed until Anderson's 1911 definition of the Temblor Formation), there seems to be good evidence that the shark teeth were collected in the same bone-bed as that found at Sharktooth Hill. Blake (1857:171) noted that "On the tops of two hills opposite camp a great number of shark's teeth of different sizes were lying loose on the surface, having been washed out by the rains." The Sharktooth Hill bone-bed horizon is known to crop out in the immediate vicinity of Blake's campsite along the south side of Pose Creek and out of the three shark producing lithostratigraphic units in the area (Jewett Sand, approximately 1.5 miles to the N.E., Olcese Sand, in the immediate area north'of Pose Creek, and the Round Mountain Silt, both north and south of the Creek), only the Round Mountain Silt, Sharktooth Hill bone-bed horizon is likely to have produced the surface concentration and taxonomic assemblage which Blake and Agassiz describe.")

Remarks
shark-references Species-ID=2060;
valid after Pfeil (1983) p. 205 [1886]; Reinecke et al. (2011) p. 13 [13836];

References