Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog

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Japanese marine biologists came across a rare frilled shark, which was sick and had moved to shallow waters. These sharks are considered “living fossils” as they haven’t changed much for millions of years. They usually live around 2000-3000 feet deep, and this is the first time a live one has been caught on tape since being discovered in the 19th century.

Observation: this is the second very rare, undocumented sea creature that Japanese scientists have videotaped, along with the Giant Squid a few weeks ago.

An interesting factiod:

Reproduction is not well understood, but like many other sharks they bear live young (ovoviviparous), with litter sizes of 2 to 12 pups. Compagno states “They are pregnant for a long time, probably one to two years”. This would give the frilled shark the possibility of having the longest gestation of any vertebrate, even exceeding the elephant’s period of 22 months.

Comments

#1 J-Dog
January 24, 2007

Very cool… I would like to put one into the Discovery Institute swimming pool. No. Wait. I changed my mind. Make that a Great White in the DI swimming pool, although because of “professional courtesy”, the GW would probably not attack the DI swimmers.
#2 Shelley Batts
January 24, 2007

If you put one of these in the DI pool, they’d probably say “Look, it hasn’t changed in 10 million years! That proves evolution is a hoax.”

Although I’m pretty sure none of the DI-ers know how to swim. They talk out their ass so much that a normal swimming position would likely result in their drowning.
#3 afarensis
January 24, 2007

Rats! You beat me to it!
#4 bernarda
January 24, 2007

There is an amusing juxtaposition in the link to CNN. Just below the shark story is a picture of a much more horrible and disgusting creature, a Dickhead Cheney, who is given as spouting,

“Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday dismissed as “hogwash” the suggestion that blunders may have hurt the administration’s credibility on Iraq”

“Hogwash” is typically what comes out of a Dickhead Cheney mouth.
#5 Mustafa Mond, FCD
January 25, 2007

Dunking Parakeet Becomes Web Video Star
#6 BenP
January 25, 2007

Very rare and very ugly…
#7 Shelley Batts
January 25, 2007

Indeed. Although not as scary as the deep sea angler fish to me.
#8 romunov
January 25, 2007

Gotta love odd things!
#9 romunov
January 26, 2007

Deep sea news has some data on these sharks.
#10 Russel
January 26, 2007

To my uninformed eyes, it looks to be moving at a fairly slow pace and the gills seem to be flared. Is that normal or due to the fact the shark is 1000+ feet above its normal domain and experiencing decompression sickness (for lack of a better term)?
#11 Shelley Batts
January 26, 2007

To my uninformed eyes, it looks to be moving at a fairly slow pace and the gills seem to be flared. Is that normal or due to the fact the shark is 1000+ feet above its normal domain and experiencing decompression sickness (for lack of a better term)?

All the media coverage represents it as a sick, old individual, so I think that’s why its swimming kinda slow and looking disoriented. I think the appearance of the gills are normal, after reading a blurb about the shark on wikipedia. It said that the reason it was called “frilled shark” was because of the odd appearance of the gills.
#12 Tweeky
September 6, 2008

It’s so sad that this shark died. Iv’ also written an article about this kind of shark so if you hvae time you could take a look at it ;D
#13 anyaey
November 21, 2008

aebern