0 Shark Week/Newsflash: A Real-Life Jaws?!

Sometimes, things just click into place. This is one of those times; the perfect, Jaws-related tidbit of news came to light during Shark Week. This was too good not to use:

"BOSTON (Reuters) - A 13-foot great white shark off the coast of Cape Cod prompted Massachusetts officials on Friday to warn beachgoers to be aware of their surroundings and to use common sense when swimming.

State biologists located the shark, which had been tagged with an acoustic transmitter, near Cape Cod island of Monomoy on May 28. White shark sightings have been on the rise off the Massachusetts coast, the setting for the 1970s shark movie, "Jaws".

The Department of Marine Fisheries advised people to avoid swimming at dawn and dusk, to stay close to the shore and to avoid areas where seals congregate.

Massachusetts has been compiling data on great white sharks since 1987. Experts have said the sharks are attracted to that coast by a growing population of gray seals.

There have been eight recorded shark attacks in Massachusetts, two of which were fatal, according to Shark Attack File, which compiles data on shark attacks worldwide." - Source and more. 

 For the record, great whites and other sharks usually do not see humans as dinner. If you happen to be stupid and punch the shark in the face or something, that gives the shark an excuse to eat you. Likewise, swimming with cuts is never a good idea. The ocean's full of sharks; not all of them are lethal.

Detail: Shark Week/Newsflash: A Real-Life Jaws?!

0 Shark Week: Pet Sharks?

Some people like menageries. They love having exotic animals that nobody else on the street has, and they happen to show off a lot of them. 

So what if one of those animals happens to be a shark?

It's hard to find a shark that will not get at least ten feet long.  You're looking at a whole room's worth of an aquarium. Oh, and you should have handled saltwater tanks before; the best sharks are in the oceans, and for regular fish, saltwater tanks are hard enough to maintain. How about feeding a shark? They aren't going to take fish flakes. In other words, for pretty much any shark, you're looking at a millionaire's investment.

So, let's say you do have the insane funds to provide for a shark. What types of sharks are good for relative beginners, seeing as some undoubtedly make better pets than others?

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there's no "ball python" to the nurse shark's "Burmese." In English: there is no pet shark that the average person can keep on a whim. There are freshwater fish called "sharks," but those are not true sharks. The good news is that there are some sharks that make better pets than others. Don't start with a great white, now.

This handy little site has some details on the best types of "starter" sharks. I'm going to save you all some research and post a little bit more on its recommendations...with pics.

Source. This image is amazing.

Wobbegongs: I want to say that this blog has already done an entry on wobbegong sharks. To my great surprise, these oddball sharks from the waters of the Pacific and Indonesia are some of the best pet sharks for the average, research-loving schmuck. Some wobbegong sharks get only 4.1 feet long, and they have slow metabolisms, needing only to be fed twice a week. Not a bad deal if you want to say you own a shark, but still requires some aquarium knowledge. The tasseled wobbegong (Eucrossorhinus dasypogon) above is one of the better wobbegongs, if a shark suits your fancy. Alas, it looks more like a bunch of seaweed than an actual shark.

Bamboo sharks: Again, these are bottom-dwelling sharks from the Indo-Pacific like wobbegongs, except they look a lot more like miniature sharks. They can "walk" on the bottom of the sea, or your tank, with their surprisingly dextrous fins. The largest species is roughly 4 feet in length. FYI, the shark the wobbegong is eating is a bamboo shark, but here's a better pic of the thing while it's alive.

 

  Epaulette sharks: THESE are so worth their own entry in the future! I'm just looking at a video and being totally charmed by it. The ocelli (big black "eye" spots) above the pectoral fins make these sharks very pleasing to the eye. These are, again, Indo-Pacific bottom-feeders. They can be fed raw shrimp, which is fairly easy to acquire and handle. They are not as small as wobbegongs and Bamboo sharks, however, so please make sure you can handle these slender sharks before taking one home!

Detail: Shark Week: Pet Sharks?

0 Shark Week: Nurse Shark.

This is a weird shark week. That means we'll be going off the beaten path, looking at sharks you never knew existed. Not every shark can be Jaws, so how about we switch to something more docile, yes?

This is a nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). Nurse sharks are fond of shallow, warm waters in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. They aren't dangerous to humans unless you disturb them, in which case prepare for a nasty bite from thousands of needle teeth. Small stuff on the bottom, be it fish, crustacean, or mollusc, is not so lucky. Their barbs function much like the whiskers on a catfish, meaning that stuff beneath the sand is not safe.

Nobody really knows why these sharks are called nurse sharks. They don't take particularly good care of their (!live) babies. The name could come from the shark's docile nature or how it "nurses" the sea bottom with its mouth, but the most likely explanation is the Old English "hurse," meaning this particular type of bottom-dwelling sea shark. In other words, name change via spell check. We've all been there.

Now, here's a puzzle: How do bottom-dwelling sharks, well, stay on the bottom? Most sharks need to swim constantly to circulate water across their gills.Nurse sharks circulate water by pumping it through their mouths. These sharks do rest a lot, sometimes on top of each other. They can be seen sleeping in masses of up to 30-40 members in one spot, meaning that these are relatively social sharks. How far removed is that from a terrifying great white?

In many ways, nurse sharks are the "Burmese pythons" of the saltwater aquarium trade. People see a cute juvenile, don't think it'll get very big, then wind up with a 10+ foot shark that no tank will hold. Good luck finding a home for a shark; most aquariums will not take them. Please do your homework before taking home any animal, especially a shark!

Detail: Shark Week: Nurse Shark.

0 Creature Feature: Basking Shark.

So, wait a tic. Is hakarl made of basking shark or Greenland shark? Actually, this is where the video got something wrong: basking sharks aren't poisonous. They can still be used for hakarl, but the curing does little more than make the meat extra-pungent. What is a basking shark, anyways, because the image of a shark basking sounds like something off of a cheap beach souvenir?

Source.

This is what a basking shark looks like. It is native to all the seven seas, presumably following the  plankton by smell. Being large, slow-moving, and calm, it has been a fishery staple for quite some time. It is the second largest fish in the world after the whale shark.

These sharks are big. You thought 23 feet was big? Nah, the basking shark can get up to 40 feet long. To reuse a bad joke, that's a lotta fish; it makes sense that some Vikings would want to preserve that. Numbers like that have not been seen for a while, but remember that the basking shark is kind of like a whale shark. Yes, it is similar to something with whale in is name for so many reasons.

Source: BBC, but sharks aren't mammals, silly network.

The basking shark, like the whale shark, is a filter-feeding shark. It eats whatever small things it swims through. That means it is only a threat to the tiny little creatures (zooplankton) that get caught in the basking shark's super-large mouth. Even though it may look a lot like a great white, it's not going to bite you. I would not, however, suggest going up to random large sharks and testing this.

Alas, this is another one of those creatures that is at risk of going extinct. Shark fin soup can come from these sharks, too. Shark liver oil was once popular, and Japan uses parts of this shark as an aphrodisiac. Basking sharks were once so common that they were thought pests. Now some areas ban catching them while others seem to have lost them entirely. If you see one of those sea monsters, look on at it in awe; unless you live at sea, they're an uncommon sight.

Maybe it's about time I did my own version of Shark Week...hmm...

Detail: Creature Feature: Basking Shark.

0 "They Actually Eat That:" Hakarl.

I think some of my faith in humanity just died. Why? Because people actually eat toxic, 23-foot-long shark, and it's popular.

No, really. There are people who eat poisonous, polar bear-eating shark. In Iceland, there is a dish called hakarl frequently eaten in winter. It happens to be the national food of Iceland, and is made entirely of Greenland shark. There are different varieties depending on where it comes from. It still comes from the same shark that is about the size of Jaws and eats Christmas mascots as a snack.

How do they do it? By making the shark rot. They bury it in a pit for a month or five, using heavy rocks to add pressure onto the dead shark. Bacteria take out the toxins in the shark's flesh during that time, making it fit for human consumption. It is then hung up to dry. Note how "delicious" does not come up in that description. Just "fit for human consumption." It's edible, but by no means delicious.

Hakarl is definitely an acquired taste. Most first-timers are advised to hold their noses; like many fermented foods, hakarl tastes (slightly) better than it smells. But don't take my word for it; the video below has testimonials detailing exactly how bad hakarl is. Chef Ramsey himself could not stomach it. No wonder brennivin is consumed afterwards.



To be fair, we can see how someone would want to eat the shark. Traditional Icelandic stuff is made with shark teeth. Just about the only thing they weren't using was the meat. It's still a freaky way to use it; "hey, let's get this bad-tasting shark to decay, and hope the poison's out while the shark's still reeking from bacteria." Yep, great logic.

After Earth would never happen. Humans would decimate every habitat so much that nature would bounce back in strange, unpredictable ways, using exactly none of the cute, fuzzy animals in that movie. The future bat in Primeval is more realistic than that.

Detail: "They Actually Eat That:" Hakarl.

0 Creature Feature: Greenland Shark.

Want an animal that could still be around 10,000 years after humanity? Sharks. Sharks are badasses that ate dinosaurs.  If we haven't dehydrated the planet, sharks will live, and they will always be associated with Jaws music in the back of our minds.

Enter the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). True to the name, it is native to the area around Greenland and Iceland. They are the largest species of dogfish and northernmost species of shark. Unlike most sharks that the general populace is aware of, these guys are probably primarily scavengers, picking on whatever carrion they can get. They also have live babies, just like boas and several other species of shark.

First of all, these sharks are huge. Jaws huge. They can grow up to 23 feet from head to tail and live around 200 years. Luckily for us, they swim only 1.6 miles per hour; a human can easily outdo that. If they did not have such derpy little mouths, we might be inclined to take them more seriously. Huge? Yes. Threatening? Hardly.


From: Fishindex.blogspot.com.

These sharks will eat any meat that fits in their goofy-looking mouths. Along with things that one might assume like seals and fish, Greenland sharks can eat reindeer and polar bears. Read that again: Reindeer and polar bears are on this thing's menu. Dear Hallmark: start marketing this thing on Christmas cards, because it's eating your mascots.

Did we mention that its flesh was poisonous? No? It is. The Greenland shark has an extremely high trimethyline oxide content in its skin. Sled dogs who eat the flesh won't die, but are unable to stand from the poison. In humans, the meat causes symptoms akin to high drunkenness. It tastes so much like piss that the folklore around the shark usually involves urine.

Wait a minute...what? Did I just say they actually ate that?

Detail: Creature Feature: Greenland Shark.

0 Newsflash: Tapeworm Eggs Found In Prehistoric Sharks.

Although it's easy to focus on giant mammals for an entire week, here's a small reprieve: parasites have been around even longer. (Actually, I couldn't find too many newsworthy things related to ancient mammals.) Tapeworms have been found in the body of a shark from the Permian, a time when mammal-like reptiles were a thing. That was before the dinosaurs, in case you aren't up to snuff with your periods of Earth's history.

The tapeworm cysts were found in the gut of  a 270-million-year-old fossil shark. Given the presence of Brazilian journals, we can safely assume that it was found somewhere in South America.

"Remains of such parasites in vertebrates from this era are rare- of 500 samples examined, only one revealed the tapeworm eggs. This particular discovery helps establish a timeline for the evolution of present-day parasitic tapeworms that occur in foods like pork, fish and beef.

The fossilized eggs were found in a cluster very similar to those laid by modern tapeworms. Some of them are un-hatched and one contains what appears to be a developing larva. According to the study, "This discovery shows that the fossil record of vertebrate intestinal parasites is much older than was previously known and occurred at least 270-300 million years ago."

The fossil described in this study is from Middle-Late Permian times, a period followed by the largest mass extinction known, when nearly 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species died out."- source.

It's kind of humbling to know that tapeworms have lived so long. If you know absolutely nothing about parasites, you know that some parasites have super-specific life cycles. Tapeworms have survived so long precisely because they are simple. Humans can get fish tapeworms, pork tapeworms, beef tapeworms...you name it. The tapeworm is not picky, which explains its amazing endurance over eons.Versatility tends to win out in the long run.

Parasite fanaticism over. Back to your regularly-scheduled mammals. Speaking of, happy Groundhog Day!

Detail: Newsflash: Tapeworm Eggs Found In Prehistoric Sharks.