Xiphodolamia ensis was a highly specialised lamniform shark with an unusually narrow, blade-like dentition. Its distinctive teeth show that it followed a feeding strategy different from the more conventional grasping dentitions of many Palaeogene lamniform sharks.

The strongly compressed crowns were suited to cutting or gripping relatively soft-bodied prey. Fishes are likely to have been important, but the exact way the teeth functioned in the mouth is difficult to reconstruct because the animal is known almost entirely from isolated dental material.

Xiphodolamia represents a distinctive extinct branch of the lamniform radiation. Its unusual dentition is valuable not simply for identification but as evidence of the wide range of predatory adaptations that had evolved among sharks by the early Eocene.