A team of scientists from the US Office of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has identified the second known specimen of the pocket shark, Mollisquama parini , a small deep-sea shark about which little is known.
According to Mark Grace, an expert in marine biology at the fishing laboratory that this institution maintains in Pascagoula (Mississippi), it is a newborn male, about 17 centimeters long, in which an umbilical scar can still be seen.
Until now, only one other specimen was known, a female of almost half a meter discovered in 1979, in the Pacific, between the waters of northern Chile and Peru. In an article published in the magazine Zootaxa, Grace, who has coordinated the study, has clarified that the new pocket shark was found in 2010, 370 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Since then, it has been kept at the NOAA facility. “The discovery has raised new questions. For example, where can their parents be? And why was the discovery in the Gulf when the first detection was so far away?
These animals are known as pocket sharks because of the distinctive holes they have behind their pectoral fins. Analyzes by Gavin Naylor, a NOAA geneticist, have revealed that this species is related to some small and medium-sized sharks of the Dalatiidae family, which have an anatomical configuration similar to a cigar and a rounded mouth. . With this they can rip off oval-shaped pieces of meat from their victims.
