The idea of a shark with manta ray-like features might seem like something fit for a low-budget sci-fi movie. Yet paleontologists have reported discovering just such a creature in the Cretaceous-period rock of Mexico. This strange shark combines a streamlined body with expansive wing-like fins, an ancient creature unlike anything found before in the fossil record.

In 2012, an unknown quarry worker found a strange set of bones in 95-million-year-old rock layers near Vallecillo, Mexico, says Romain Vullo, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Karlsruhe in Germany. The fossil came to the attention of local paleontologist Margarito González González, who collected and prepared it by chipping rock off the preserved skeleton. Photos of the shark started making waves at paleontological