Real-life baby shark looks alien, but scientists are excited about finding it
Tiny ghost shark gives scientists a rare look at life in deep water
A newly hatched ghost shark found off the coast of New Zealand will help marine biologists learn more about deep-water fish.
"I got very excited," Brit Finucci, who was part of the team that spotted the shark, told As It Happens host Carol Off. "That's something we don't see very often."
Ghost sharks — also known as chimaeras — are cartilaginous relatives of true sharks, like the great white shark. But these aren't the Jaws sharks: unlike their bigger relatives, Finucci says chimaeras don't bite. In fact, these fish lack the multiple rows of replaceable teeth, and instead have just three pairs of permanent tooth plates.
These fish live in the deep sea, which makes them notoriously difficult to study, says Finucci, who is a fisheries scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand.
"Deep water research is very expensive, so we don't get out very much. And what we do know about a lot of the deep water species comes from our adults," she explained.
This makes the discovery of the juvenile ghost shark even more valuable. "We do know that juveniles can be quite different from adults," Finucci said. "They can live in different areas. They can live at different depths. They eat different foods. And sometimes they even just look very different."
The ghost shark hatchling was already dead when it was found during a trawl survey off the coast of New Zealand's South Island.
Finucci said they still have to determine exactly the species to which it belongs, but she expects this will help "fill in some of the biological knowledge gaps."
"These are very data-poor species, we know very little about them and they are often forgotten, when they do sit within a group of fish that include whale sharks and white sharks. So it is great that ghost sharks are getting some attention."
Once the ghost shark specimen has been studied, it will likely go to one of the national museums in New Zealand.
Written by Olsy Sorokina. Interview with Brit Finucci produced by Sarah Jackson.
