While it won’t inspire any Jaws sequels or even feature prominently in the next Sharknado, the discovery of a pocket shark by NOAA Fisheries’ is definitely worthy of attention. To date only two of the animals have ever been found and even the differences between the two discoveries is something of a curiosity.
The first was found in the Nazca Submarine Ridge off northern Chile in 1979, the second in the gulf of Mexico in 2010. The species, officially classified as Mollisquama sp is called “pocket shark” not because it would fit in your pocket, which it would, but because of an orifice behind its pectoral fin.
It is difficult to make general statements about what pocket sharks are like as a species because there are only two samples to work with. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which maintains the “Red List” of endangered species, essentially considers the species as too unknown to be endangered.
“The pocket shark we found was only 5 and a half inches long, and was a recently born male. Discovering him has us thinking about where mom and dad may be, and how they got to the Gulf. The only other known specimen was found very far away, off Peru, 36 years ago,” said Mark Grace of NOAA Fisheries’ Pascagoula, Miss., Laboratory in a statement.
Grace is lead author of the new study, describing the fish, in the journal Zootaxa.
The researchers know that the fish was born very recently because it still displayed an unhealed umbilical scar.
While Grace may wonder how the animal got to the gulf, it is also entirely possible that it was the earlier specimen who was out of place. That fish was captured at a depth of just over 1,000 feet and was 15 inches long.
The new specimen was collected 190 miles off Louisiana by a ship studying sperm whale feeding. The pocket shark remained in the lab for years before being discovered by Grace. He then recruited NOAA Ocean Service genetics expert Gavin Naylor and Michael Doosey and Henry Bart of Tulane University to do a proper examination.
Although there are still more questions than answers when it comes to pocket sharks, the researchers were able to compare it to the 1979 specimen and found that it had a series of glands on the abdomen not noted on the earlier specimen.
“This record of such an unusual and extremely rare fish is exciting, but its also an important reminder that we still have much to learn about the species that inhabit our oceans,” said Grace.
Believe it or not, the pocket shark is not the worlds smallest. According to the Smithsonian, that distinction belongs to Etmopterus perry, the dwarf lantern shark which is only 6 to 8 inches long when fully grown.
That shark is also very rare and found in the roughly the same area as the pocket shark; from the northern tip of South America to the Caribbean.
The pocket shark specimen is now in the Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection at Tulane University’s Biodiversity Research Institute in Belle Chasse, La. and it is hoped that further examination will provide more information about the elusive species.
