SciencePunk

Researchers install window on shark egg

Posted by Frank Swain on May 31, 2010
(10)
More »

Treehugger reports on the work of marine scientists at Brazil’s Guaruja Aquarium, who have added a plastic window onto a shark egg so they can watch the fish develop.

i-044e09ad76e4c99bd35f9b1a78b67583-shark-egg-window.jpg

In the photo above you can see the fetal bamboo shark attached to a large yolk sac. The video below gives a better view.

After noting that the unborn shark was unaffected by the window on its neonatal world, researchers removed the entire animal from its purse and allowed it to grow inside a perspex container. The work will help shed more light on how young sharks develop, an understanding of which is crucial to the conservation of threatened shark species.

Keywords: , , , ,
(10)
More »

Comments

  1. #1 GoatRider
    May 31, 2010

    I read the headline as
    “Researchers install Windows® on shark egg”

  2. #2 Frank the SciencePunk
    May 31, 2010

    @Goat Rider
    haha, like this.

  3. #3 GoatRider
    May 31, 2010

    Hah! Exactly like that!

  4. #4 Vanessa Wong
    June 1, 2010

    This is amazing! I recently read (in Jean-Paul Gagnon’s ‘the democracy paradox’, see http://eprints.qut.edu.au/31691/1/31691.pdf) that communication is essential for democracy to grow. We should apply the same principle to marine science and see if we communicate it more it too will grow! Maybe it will impact democracy in a way that the government will fund it more so that more of this great science can continue!

  5. #5 Megan
    June 1, 2010

    Does anybody know what the red thread like things hanging off of it are? I’m no developmental biologist…I just know basics like blastocyst and such..

  6. #6 Toby
    June 1, 2010

    I too read ‘Windows’. That was cool, but now I’m disappointed.

  7. #7 Allan
    June 1, 2010

    @megan I would hazard a guess and suggest that the thread like things are external gills (like on a Axolotl).

  8. #8 Mike Mike
    June 2, 2010

    I wonder how early they could install the window. It would be neat to get to see the really early stages embryo development. It looks like the shark is pretty far along in all of these photos, though.

  9. #9 Linus T
    June 2, 2010

    I’ll be impressed when it runs Linux

  10. #10 Bill
    June 2, 2010

    XP, Vista or 7?