GOBLIN SHARK FACTS
GOBLIN SHARK FACTS
1. Sharks belong to a family called Chondrichthyes. The members all have cartilage rather than bones.Cartilage is lighter than bone and helps the shark to float.
2. The Goblin Shark is the only member of the Mitsukurinidae family that originated at least 125 million years ago. Because of this, goblin sharks are often referred to as living fossils.
3. “Goblin Shark” is a translation of its old Japanese name tenguzame. A tengu is a Japanese mythical creature with a long nose and red face.
4. First scientifically described by the American ichthyologist David Starr Jordan in an 1898 issue of Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences.
5. Even though they are very rarely caught during trawling, after an earthquake off northwestern Taiwan back in April 2003 a significant amount of goblin sharks were caught.
6. Can be blue, to grey to pink (sometimes a bubblegum pink even). The pink color is not derived from skin pigmentation- instead, it is from their oxygenated blood capillaries because their top dermis is slightly transparent.
7. Has a soft body.
Flat elongated snout .
Protrusable jaws.
Long tail fin with no ventral lobe.
Fang-like inverted teeth.
Size can range anywhere between 8 to 17 feet long.
Females are larger than males.
8. Patchy distribution in the Atlantic, western Indian and Pacific Oceans.
9. They are bottom-dwelling sharks rarely seen at the surface or in shallow water.
10. Most shallow depth found at 311 feet.
11. Juveniles are found in the more shallow waters while mature adults tend to live in deeper waters.
12. The goblin shark uses its ampullae of Lorenzini, pores found in its snout, for electrodetection of prey.
13. The jaws are modified for rapid projection that dislocates itself to catch prey.
14. The jaw is thrust forward by a double set of ligaments at the mandibular joints. When the jaws are retracted the ligaments are stretched and they become relaxed when the jaw is projected forward. The jaws are usually held tightly while swimming and function like a catapult.
15. Believed to eat shrimps, pelagic octopus, fish, and squid.
16. The Goblin Shark does this same process but in reverse when it wants to put its mouth back into place.
17. Researchers think this shark floats motionless in the water while waiting for food.
18. The soft flabby body allows it to float without sinking or rising to the surface without any movement at all unlike most sharks who sink if they stop swimming.
19. Body form suggests that it is not a good swimmer.
20. Weak muscles, small eyes, just sits and waits for food to bump into it.
21. Ovoviviparous however, a pregnant female has never been captured/witnessed.
22. Blue Sharks eat them.
23. Hardly ever comes in contact with humans but large size makes it potentially dangerous to people.
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