You're super interesting! Here watch: know any cool shark facts?
I definitely am not interesting, but I get to talk about sharks so its okay. (I guess I’ll just give my random favorite…. this might get long)
-Most sharks, like great whites and makos, will drown if they stop moving because the don’t have the muscles necessary to move water through their mouths and over their gills. We didn't really know if sharks slept because they have to keep moving at all times, but last year when I watched shark week, on one of the shows scientists seemed to catch a shark “sleeping” using a robotic submarine with cameras all over it. If I remember correctly the shark (a great white) went into this sort of catatonic state at some point in the night and slowly swam against the current with her mouth open, allowing for water to flow over her gills, and for her to save energy. (Unrelated to the sleeping thing, this is why shark nets are so dangerous for them. They get caught and suffocate when they’re unable to move/breathe)
(I think this is the video from discovery)
-The great white is on average 15 feet in length, the dunkleosteus (not a shark, but a placoderm fish from the Late Devonian period (I just think they’re cool)) on average was 35 feet long, and the megalodon 80 feet long.
-The dwarf lanternshark is considered the smallest shark at about 7 inches in length. The second smallest is the pygmy shark, at 8 to 10 inches
-Sharks are cartilaginous. Teeth are the most common shark fossils one can find because most of the cartilage skeleton dissolves in salt water, but, while it is uncommon to find full body fossils, there are fossils of vertebrae, rostral nodes (kind of like its nose), and dermal denticles, which are the tiny scales that make up a shark’s skin. Basically parts of the shark with the densest cartilage.
(Because I’m lame, here’s the first link that pops up when you google “shark fossils”)
-I think it’s like 50 different species of sharks use bioluminescence. These sharks come from the Etmopteridae and Dalatiidae families.
(Article about “glow in the dark” sharks)
(A synthesis talking about the two bioluminescent sharks (It’s a bit hard to read but still cool!!))
-Sharks are like 400 million years old and have survived (all?????) five major extinctions.
-To answer something that I’m often asked: sharks Do have tongues. Its a piece of cartilage at the floor of its mouth that lacks taste buds and is called the basihyal. It doesn’t really do anything, but the cookiecutter shark uses it along with its teeth to help rip chunks of flesh out of it’s prey.
-The elegestolepis shark is considered the first shark and lived during the Silurian and Devonian periods. We really don’t know what it looked like and can only identify it from its scales.
-The Carboniferous period is sometimes called the Golden Age of Sharks. By the end of this period there were 45 families of sharks.
-The ginsu shark (cretoxyrhina mantelli), a prehistoric shark, would have been about the size of a bus.
-The puffadder shyshark is a catshark (the fact that we have “cat sharks” and “dogfish sharks” just really gets to me. idk i just love it so much)
-Bat ray fossils dating back to a million years have been found.
-Some rays, like bat and manta rays “flap,” and others move their body by undulating like a wave.
(Blue spotted stingray; waving motion)
(Bat ray; flapping motion)
-Stingrays are born fully formed and able to be self-sufficient, but will stay with their mothers until about age 3 (this is different from sharks, who don’t care for their pups after their birth)
I tag all shark posts as #sharkive
There is also a tab on my blog leading to that tag
You can send me posts about sharks or rays at any time
And I will love you for it
And probably definitely cry
This is another ask I was sent asking about sharks
Yeah so. I know it was supposed to be about sharks but I love rays so I incorporated the shark cousins at the end. Have fun with the shark facts here’s my favorite gifs
