Treasures of the Sea: Frilled Shark

Hello everyone! I have decided that once a month I would dip into the marine biology world and post about an interesting sea critter.

Since this is my first month starting this particular type of post, I thought “what better way to start this off than with a shark!?” So this week’s post is going to be about the Japanese Frilled Shark.

This shark is particularly intriguing because it is very rarely seen and has barely evolved since its appearance on earth approximately 150 million years ago!

Distribution:

Frilled Sharks are not known for having a specific distribution, instead they are scattered in different oceans. They are thought to live in depths between 400 and 4,200 feet, however it is often too difficult to tell.

Diet:

Frilled sharks are mostly thought to eat cephalopods (squid and octopi) and they represent about 61% of the shark’s diet. There were other miscellaneous fish sampled, but they’re much more difficult to identify from the stomach of the shark.

Physiology:

The Frilled Shark has a very elongated body, looking like that of an eel. The jaws of the shark are different from that of most sharks in that they reside at the end of its mouth, instead of underneath. These jaws are armed with about 300 or so teeth that look like little tridents.

Video time:

More information?:
Check out these websites for some more information and pictures about these interesting critters.

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/ecology/deepsea-frilled_shark.htm

http://www.shark.ch/Database/Search/species.html?sh_id=1049

The frilled shark is just one interesting sea creature that my blog has in store. Stay tuned for the next interesting deep sea critter, the Pelican Eel!