Ramon Carretero\/Getty Images\/iStock<\/p>\n
Shark Week is kicking off on Sunday, and North Texans\u00a0may soon see a local on screen.<\/p>\n
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Discovery Channel\u2019s Shark Week began in 1988 to help educate the public about sharks and dismantle common misconceptions. But it has since grown into a cultural phenomenon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science<\/a> will be making its Shark Week debut, and one of the museum’s own, Ron Tykoski<\/a>, will play a major role.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n About “Jurassic Sharks”<\/p>\n Tykoski, the vice president of science and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Perot, will appear in Shark Week\u2019s Jurassic Sharks, airing Tuesday at 7 p.m.\u00a0on Discovery and streaming on HBO Max.<\/p>\n As the name of the show suggests, it will focus on some of the largest and\u00a0most bizarre prehistoric sharks. \u201cTurns out,” Tykoski said, “we’ve got a good number of them preserved in the rocks here in Texas.”<\/p>\n During the segment, Tykoski,\u00a0Kesley Banks, an associate research scientist with Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, and Chris\u00a0Flis, the museum director of the Whiteside Museum of Natural History, will visit a famous Permian fossil site in North Texas, where ancient sharks lived more than 270 million years ago.<\/p>\n There the trio will discuss a number of ancient shark species, many of which Tykoski described as \u201cweirdos.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cSharks were more diverse in the past than they are today,\u201d Tykoski said. Some of that diversity is due to them taking advantage of different niches, like different foods, which is reflected in their anatomy.<\/p>\n Xenacanthus teeth in rock from the Early Permian.<\/p>\n Perot Museum of Nature and Science<\/p>\n For example, the freshwater shark Xenacanthus had a mouthful of razor-blade-like teeth with multiple points. \u201cImagine each tooth having two prongs angled out like a V, biting and slashing on things, and then spines on their heads and on their fins,” Tykoski said.<\/p>\n A different shark called Ptychodus, on the other hand, had wide, flattened teeth designed to crush shelled prey such as ammonites, ancient relatives of the nautilus, rather than tear flesh.<\/p>\n Ptychodus teeth from the late\u00a0Cretaceous, Coniacian age.<\/p>\n Perot Museum of Nature and Science<\/p>\n The show will also use CGI to reconstruct these prehistoric sharks, based in part on fossils from the Perot, to help show viewers what these creatures looked like.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Celebrate Shark Week at the Perot<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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