Rare frilled shark caught off Australia
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-01-22 12:35 GMT
A 300-toothed frilled shark, with a face fitting of a sea monster, was caught off the waters of Victoria, Australia, last month. The rarely sighted shark has ancestors dating back 80 million years and is known as a "living fossil," according to the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association (SETFIA). The shark is about 6 feet in length, with a body that looks like an eel and has a sharklike tail. The association posted an image of the catch on its website.
According to SETFIA, Exhibiting several primitive features, the frilled shark is often termed a "living fossil". It reaches a length of 2.0m and has a dark brown, eel-like body with the dorsal, pelvic, and anal fins placed far back. Its common name comes from the frilly or fringed appearance of its six pairs of gill slits.
Seldom observed, the frilled shark may capture prey by bending its body and lunging forward like a snake. The long, extremely flexible jaws enable it to swallow prey whole, while its 300 needle-shaped teeth aligned in 25 rows make it difficult for the prey to escape. Some literature suggests its body shape allows it to feed along crevices on cephalopods, bony fishes and other sharks. A large liver packed with low-density oils and hydrocarbons allows it to maintain neutral buoyancy at depth.
A skipper, named David Guillot, found the shark while fishing for sea perch, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Guillot said he'd never seen anything like the shark in his 30 years at sea, according to the Herald.
"The head on it was like something out of a horror movie. It was quite horrific looking. ... It was quite scary actually," Guillot said. The shark was offered as a specimen to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. But the organization declined because it already had a specimen, SETFIA said on its website. The frilled shark is believed to have been sold.