Here, we will discuss the newly identified shark species that have been found as a result of humanity’s increased exploration of the oceans. A mystery that started with an egg was involved. Scientists in Australia discovered a peculiar type of “mermaid bag” in 1989, a leather egg case that some shark species use to lay their eggs rather than give birth to live young. An almost unique feature of empty egg casings was a row of noticeable ridges at the top. A few hundred kilometers off the northeast coast of Australia, in the East Timor Sea, near a set of atolls known as Rowley Shoals, was where the eggs were discovered.
New shark species
After more than 30 years, researchers would eventually answer the most fundamental of these questions, leading to the discovery of a new species of shark. The ocean’s most spectacular hunters are still being discovered by humanity more than two decades into the 21st century. As recently as the mid-1980s, science reduced the number of shark species to about 360. These species range from deep-sea featherweights like the 8-inch-long dwarf lanternshark to the massive whale shark. , the largest fish species. in the oceans, and a plankton feeder. But this number has increased by 40% in just a little over 40 years. More than 500 species have been identified, and the rate of discovery of new species has not slowed.
This most recent wave of discovery is comparable to the heyday of exploration. It is a byproduct of meticulous research in the archives of museum collections, as well as exploration of the deep corners of the world’s seas. Consider the shark that produced the enigmatic crested egg shells. The group that made the connections included Will White, Senior Curator of the Australian National Fish Collection at CSIRO in Hobart, Australia. The egg boxes had been distributed to the museum archives after being found during an inspection at Rowley Shoals, with little attention paid to the box’s peculiar ridges.
While doing volunteer work at the Western Australian Museum in Perth in 2011, a researcher named Brett Human discovered the grooved shark egg case. Although the eggs resembled those of another shark species, that shark had never been discovered in Australian seas. Humans restricted the species to potentially being a catfish by connecting the egg case to other eggs that had been discovered in Australia. But he was unable to identify the precise species. It turns out that in the 1980s, CSIRO had also received samples of the egg cartons, but no one had done any further investigation.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn