Abstract
The whale shark, Rhincodon typus Smith, 1829, is reported for the first time from a fossil tooth recovered from a lag deposit at the contact between the Squankum Member of the Shark River Formation and Asbury Park Member of the Kirkwood Formation (middle Eocene-early Miocene) in Farmingdale, Mon-mouth County, New Jersey. This tooth represents the northernmost occurrence of this species from the middle Cenozoic of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and was associated with a diverse assemblage of chondrichthyans, including megatoothed sharks, and osteichthyans. Although the Farmingdale assemblage consists primarily of nearshore species, the infrequent occurrence of pelagic and deep water taxa including the whale shark, R. typus, suggests a nutrient-rich environment existed in this region of the New Jersey outer coastal plain during the middle Cenozoic. The occurrence of a fossil R. typus tooth in the Farmingdale chondrichthyan assemblage approximately 12 km from the nearest modern shoreline also represents an excellent proxy and predictor of future sea-level change and habitat shifts in a rapidly warming modern world.