'Almost complete' 150M year-old shark discovered gives experts look into Earth's distant past

Experts have discovered an "almost-complete" fossil of a 150-million-year-old shark in Germany, giving them a nearly unprecedented look into Earth's distant past.

"The specimen is represented by an almost completely preserved skeleton of the extinct hybodontiform shark Asteracanthus, the total length of which was two-and-a-half meters in life, which made it a giant among Jurassic sharks," a statement from the University of Vienna reads. Asteracanthus was a type of Hybodontiformes, a close relative of modern sharks and rays. Hybodontiformes had two dorsal fins and ranged in size, with some as small as a few centimeters, all the way to nearly 10 feet in length.