Both sharks and rays are Chondrichthyes, meaning their skeletons are made entirely of cartilage (the hard part found in the middle of your nose). Sharks are the oldest jawed animals found on the planet today, having evolved over 450 million years ago. Despite human's fear and distrust of these animals, more people are killed by falling vending machines every year than are killed and eaten by sharks. Jun 12
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Shark biologists have announced the discovery of two sharks never seen before in Australian waters.
When a fisherman caught a bull shark recently off the Florida Keys, he came across an unlikely surprise: One of the shark's live fetuses had two heads. The fisherman kept the odd specimen, and shared it with scientists, who described it in a study published online today (March 25) in the Journal of Fish Biology. It's one of the very few examples of a two-headed shark ever recorded — there about six instances in published reports — and the first time this has been seen in a bull shark , said Michael Wagner, a study co-author and researcher at Michigan State University.
May 19, 2012 The phenomenal picture above was taken in 2009 in the Sea of Cortez off the coast of Baja California in Mexico. It was the winner of ‘Underwater World’ category at the 2010 Environment Photographer of the Year awards organized by CIWEM . German photographer Florian Schulz said the scope of the ray congregations was unknown until he and a pilot happened upon the gathering while searching for migrating whales. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Munk’s devil rays as near threatened, due in part to their vulnerability to gill nets—hard-to-see “curtains” of netting. [Source: National Geographic ]
Whale shark close to sitting in a boat fisherman,who feeds her from the hands of saltwater shrimp in shallow waters off the coast of Oslob, Philippines.Local fishermen are willing to show the audience admired the amazing process of feeding the giant fish length exceeding 7.5 metra.Mestnye fishermen consider whale shark as a kind of a good deity patronizing them and bringing a good catch.That did not stop enterprising locals demand from Shawn and a half dollars for every shot they made,which was recorded feeding process akul.Sharks filter the water for feeding,so the man is,in principle,are safe.Local residents in the past engaged in fishing whale sharks due to the fact that the high demand in the markets enjoyed their meat and fins,but these fish are now in the Philippines under the protection and there is a ban on their fishing. Related posts: <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
Photograph courtesy Tom Mannering A shark has been caught on camera making a meal of another shark along Australia's Great Barrier Reef . Released earlier this month, the pictures show a tasseled wobbegong halfway through swallowing a brownbanded bamboo shark. Daniela Ceccarelli and David Williamson, from Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies , chanced on the spectacle while conducting a fish census on the fringing reef off Great Keppel Island. "The first thing that caught my eye was the almost translucent white of the bamboo shark," Ceccarelli said in an email.
- During the Middle Permian era 270 million years ago, Arizona was home to a diverse shark population.
A lemon shark bites another on the snout in waters off the Bahamas. Photographer Matt Heath said: "The sharks in this picture were competing for a piece of fish that I was hand-feeding them. I was trying to feed one of the sharks when the other came in and bit at the fish at the same time.
By Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED: 12:30 GMT, 24 October 2012 | UPDATED: 18:39 GMT, 24 October 2012 These terrifying pictures show the moment a photographer was circled by a hungry shark - for two hours. Brave Sam Cahir refused to panic during the real-life Jaws scenario - getting in the water with his camera to capture these incredible shots. Australian Sam had been taking part in a Great White tagging trip when he found himself face-to-face with the deadly predator off the Neptune Islands, South Australia.
Scientists are all but running giddily into the surf with fancy new gadgetry as the annual migration of great white sharks hits full swing along the Pacific coast and reports flood in about finned beasts lurking in shallow waters. The ferocious predators have returned to their feeding grounds in the so-called Red Triangle, an area roughly between Monterey Bay, the Farallon Islands and Bodega Head, but sharks have been spotted all along the coast, including a 20-footer seen last weekend next to Moss Landing Harbor. The appearance of the great whites could not come at a better time for researchers, who recently deployed a new robotic device that can identify and track the movements of sharks and other fish equipped with acoustic monitoring devices.
In this world of Photoshop and online scams, it pays to have a hearty dose of skepticism at reports of something strange — including an albino fetal shark with one eye smack in the middle of its nose like a Cyclops. But the Cyclops shark, sliced from the belly of a pregnant mama dusky shark caught by a commercial fisherman in the Gulf of California earlier this summer, is by all reports the real thing. Shark researchers have examined the preserved creature and found that its single eye is made of functional optical tissue, they said last week. It's unlikely, however, that the malformed creature would have survived outside the womb. "This is extremely rare," shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana of Mexico's Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog in July.
A MASSIVE manta ray dwarfs a group of ocean divers — but thankfully this is a gentle giant. The monstrous 16ft-wide creature, one of a family group, lives off the coast of the Socorro and San Benedicto Islands in the Pacific Ocean. But despite their size, the animals pose no threat to humans and were positively friendly to the marine explorers. These incredible shots were captured by photographer Franco Banfi, 50.
Threat display of a grey reef shark. The postures become more exaggerated as the danger perceived by the shark increases. Shark threat display , a type of agonistic display , is a behaviour observed in some sharks when they feel threatened or protective.
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