Otodus sokolovi - Kazakhstan

This catalog contains excellent teeth from an extinct Otodontid shark - Carcharocles auriculatus, a precursor to the Megalodon. The early Carcharocles auriculatus is fully serrated with very large serrations and highly irregular cusps serrations.

The Evolutionary Path to Megalodon - transition from the non-serrate Otodus obliquus to the fully serrated Auriculatus tooth - The Kazakhstan early Eocene sediments are one of the few places in the world where the transition to the fully serrated Auriculatus tooth can be observed and collected.  The  transition teeth representing the progression from Otodus obliquus to the Auriculatus are as follows.

Carcharocles mugodzharicus or Otodus mugodzharicus - has very fine serrations covering lower 2/3s of the crown (sometimes the serrations can be the wavy "Escheri-like" serrations) and little to no side cusp serrations. 

Carcharocles aksuaticus or Otodus aksuaticus - a semi-serrated or finely serrated tooth that can have moderate sized serrations at the base of the crown. The side cusps will have few serrations.

Kazakhstan site - These teeth are very rare, early Eocene (Ypresian) in age (approx. 55 mya) from Kzil-Orda region in western Kazakhstan (new location). Note - this location has been collected for ~3 summers and it is now exhausted. This is the last of the material from this site that made it to US. Some incredibly rare teeth are posted.

Note - teeth from the Kert, Mangyshlak site are found in the L. Schorym Fm. and are late Eocene age (Bartonian) - 37 MYA.