And now there is one less frilled shark in the world.
Eighty million years ago, a family of sharks called Chlamydoselachus anguineus roamed the seas. As soon as latin died (and with it, countless STD-esque titles), it became known to the layperson simply as the frilled shark, except for in biology classrooms and laboratories, and in especially pretentious living rooms.
Frilled sharks are almost never seen. The dwindling species like to hang out at around 4000 feet below sea level, which for obvious reasons like pressure and oxygen, isn’t the most hospitable place for homo sapiens (that’s us, in a biology classroom, laboratory, or a pretentious living room), except for in Japan, where, for some reason, they call the 600-700 foot region home. So unless you’re Jaques Cousteau or a submarine owning billionaire or Ariel, you’re probably not going to see one–which is slightly disappointing, because in 80 million years, they really haven’t changed all that much. But there’s still hope if you want to see a real-life living fossil. You just need to work on a fishing boat that’s really, really lucky.
A few days ago, a trawler sailing under the name Western Alliance reeled in one of their lines and found–you guessed it–a frilled shark. “I caught Chlamydoselachus anguineus!” exclaimed one of the fishermen. “What?” exclaimed the others, rifling through their pockets for penicillin. The shark in question measure around six feet in length, and was decidedly unhappy with the predicament it found itself in.
The Western Alliance happened to be fishing off the coast of south eastern Victoria when they made the startling catch. According to reports, after it had been reeled in and lay flopping on the deck, (a situation which, one can only assume, was not accounted for in 80 million years of evolution) it attempt to alert one of the fisherman to its unhappiness by attacking him. “When one of the deckhands went to pick it up by its tail,” said skipper David Guillot, “its ability to turn back on itself quite sharply was something I hadn’t seen before. I’ve caught a lot of sharks in my life, but it seemed like it was really looking at you and quite aggressively going for you.”
Frilled sharks, while not all that experienced on boat decks, are very adept at eating. Their jaws are flexible, like a snake’s, allowing them to swallow prey whole. They also carry around 300 teeth in their mouth, arranged in such a manner that escape, once in the shark’s mouth, is similar to running naked through a patch of brambles that are intent on swallowing you without chewing. “The head on it was like something out of a horror movie, Guillot continued. “It was quite horrific looking… it was quite scary actually.”
“No shit,” said everyone else, remembering the chest-busting scene in Alien.
Terrifying deep sea monster (aka 'frilled shark') turns up in Aussie trawlers' catch:
http://t.co/PgCvFrAyPq @SETFIA pic.twitter.com/GWiGGN07qW
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) January 21, 2015
