#mackerel sharks

[vireosy]

shortfin mako shark

// full illustration for @swimonzine vol.10 // this piece is on Inprnt

[just-here-for-shark-stuff]

Daily Shark Fact - 4/23/2025

Today's shark is the goblin shark!

The basics: the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is a rare deep-sea shark and the only extant member of its family. The goblin shark's long "nose" is covered with ampullae of Lorenzini, sensory organs that pick up on eletromagnetic signatures to detect prey. Almost all sharks have jaws that are not articulated to their skulls that they can push outwards to bite prey, but goblin sharks are particularly dramatic in how far and fast they can "shoot" their jaws out to grab food. They can extend their jaws almost the length of their long snout!

Conservation status: least concern. Though goblin sharks are occasional bycatch of deep-water fishing, it's rare enough that they're not considered threatened by human fishing activity and likely live outside of most commercial fishing ranges.

Today's fun fact: the goblin shark's common English name is actually a loan translation of their Japanese common name, tenguzame - meaning they're not really named after goblins, it's just an attempt to translate the Japanese stories of tengu, which are described as supernatural beings with long noses and red faces.

[wikipediapictures]

Goblin shark

“Goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) scaled with a human” - via Wikimedia Commons

[antiqueanimals]

Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), Common thresher (Alopias vulpinus), Shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), Porbeagle (Lamna nasus), Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus)

Fishes of the World. Written by Hans Hvass. Illustrated by Wilhelm Eigener. Originally published in 1964.

Internet Archive

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Sharks are famous for their ferocious bites, and goblin sharks are no exception! The most iconic image of these sharks is with their jaws protruding, but in fact most of the time their jaws remain retracted under their snouts. The jaws only extend when snatching up prey, which goblin sharks can do in the blink of an eye-- a goblin shark can project its jaws at a rate of 3.1 m/s (10.1 ft/s). That's faster than a cobra strike! As if that weren't enough, goblin shark jaws can open to 111 degrees; for comparison, human mouths can only open up to 50 degrees.

Check out the video below to see those jaws in action!

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[hasellia]

I can't believe O. megalodon took Dunkleosteus' big naturals 😔

[just-here-for-shark-stuff]

Have you done any fun facts about thresher sharks? Love ur blog!!! :3

Ahh that makes me so happy!! This blog is still really new and I was mostly just expecting it to be me talking to myself, so it makes me smile to know you like it too :)

I haven't had a chance to talk about thresher sharks yet, but aren't they great? All three species of threshers are just peak sharks, really - they're cool, they got big silly eyes, they always look like they just nervously asked you to prom and weren't expecting you to say yes and now they don't know what to do

How about some fun facts about the pelagic thresher? They're actually the smallest of the three thresher species (not that any of them are super big, really), and it's easy enough to confuse them with the common Atlantic thresher that we actually can't be confident we know what their range looks like! Their big eyes are a hallmark of the species (they make them look so cute and silly), and they actually decrease in size relative to the shark's body with age, so you can guesstimate a thresher's age as juveniles will have very big peepers. We can't be certain at this stage, but current research indicates that, unlike the common thresher, the pelagic thresher probably isn't warm-blooded, which has interesting implications for how even sharks within the same genus have evolved to thermoregulate differently.

Of course, one of the coolest things about pelagic threshers is their hunting strategies! These sharks literally evolved to herd fish around and then slap them with those long tails.

[just-here-for-shark-stuff]

Daily Shark Fact - 4/10/2025

Today's shark is the great white shark!

The basics: perhaps the most famous shark in the world, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is arguably the largest macropredatory fish in the world and the fourth-largest shark (behind only the three big filter-feeders). White sharks are active predators with a generalized diet from bony fishes to pinnipeds to seabirds, and though they are by far the species with the most recorded bite incidents with humans, these are almost exclusively cases of missing identity and are still extremely rare (less than 10 per year). White sharks have complex social structures and behaviors, sometimes observed in "clans" with organized and clear hierarchies and dominance structures among members! While all sharks have ampullae of Lorenzini, sensory organs that allow them to sense electromagnetic signatures, white sharks are so incredibly sensitive that they can pick up on signatures as small as half a billionth of a volt!

Conservation status: vulnerable worldwide and critically endangered in Europe. Their migratory habits and open-ocean habitat mean a clear picture of their populations is still unknown, but they are uncommon compared to what their worldwide distribution would suggest, and their populations have been noted to be in decline since the 1970s. White sharks are not targeted for commercial fishing, though they are at risk of bycatch, especially young sharks, and white sharks are frequently the targets of ineffective and short-sighted shark culling programs (in an ineffective attempt to prevent shark "attacks"). White sharks can take 30 years to reach sexual maturity, meaning that their populations are slow to recover and have the potential to decline very quickly.

Today's fun fact: through early studies of white shark blood, it's been found that they have strong concentrations of heavy metals, including lead, mercury, and arsenic, apparently with no ill effect to the sharks. While it's possible that this is just a result of their hyper-predatory diet, sharks are apex predators who accumulate toxins from the food they eat, and they eat a lot of it. White shark blood, and the toxins it contains, may be a key piece to understanding the overall health of not just them but the species they prey on!