A team of marine life scientist has made history by being the first to tag an animal from a sub .
The beast in question was a bluntnose sixgill shark ( Hexanchus griseus ) , aka Atlantic mud shark , moo-cow shark , or English bulldog shark ( the creature hasmany more namesbesides ) . It is an elusive mintage , existing thousands of meters below sea storey over the continental and insular shelf and moving to shallower waters at dark to feed .
But now , OceanX has released videos of individual sixgills hold up about their business – and the images are remarkable .
See this one with an appropriately eerie soundtrack :
This one complete with running commentary :
And this one from Facebook :
Because of its recondite - sea sensitivity , we know relatively little about this isolated giant . An fair shark will reach distance of a short more than 4.5 time – 15 to 16 feet , or a similar size toa great white . Some can attain length of 8 meters or 26 feet . But we do know it is a prevailing predator of its deep - ocean environment . We also love that it is an highly primitive coinage , predating most dinosaurs .
The shark gets its name ( and there is no shocker here ) from its six gills , an evolutionary throwback to some of the earliest shark specie from the Early Jurassic period . Most shark alive today have five . Indeed , compare modernistic sixgills to the fossil record and it await like they have changed little over the last 200 million geezerhood .
researcher trust to improve their sympathy of these mysterious creatures by tagging individual sharks and track their movement . While scientist have successfully lured sixgills to the surface for tracking purposes in the yesteryear , the appendage can leave the fauna disorientated and confused – a scenario that is neither nice for the shark nor contributing to garner reliable data . The scientist at OceanX say the information is often skewed as it take away some time for the shark to return to normal demeanor .
And so , the team attempted a novel approach : tag the sharks in their favourite environs , 2,500 cadence ( 8,200 feet ) or so below ocean level .
The first effort bring piazza in August 2018 , when " a gorgeous big sixgill " approached the Cuban sandwich . unluckily , she roll her stomach at the last second gear , hindering the team ’s efforts to apply a satellite tag on the part of her organic structure suitable for doing so , an area roughly the size of an iPad . The second attempt was equally unsuccessful . In February 2019 , the squad attempted to go after a sixgill but the speargun did not fire .
It was third time lucky and the team was able to achieve their goal on the next attempt in June 2019 . After a serial of black eye ( solar day one : the speargun failed . Day two : the relevant adjustments to the speargun were made , but the sixgills were a no show . Day 3 : a large grouper gatecrashed the company , successfully dog itself in the correct position ) , the research worker got what they came for and give chase a enceinte male person .
Not only does this mean we should uncover more on the mysterious lives of sixgills , but the success of the mission prove the theory of tagging thick - sea tool with the use of a hero sandwich – open up up the opening of learning more about life on the sea floor . Believe it or not , we havebetter maps of the Earth’s surface of Marsthan we do of the ocean . According toNOAA , more than 80 per centum of the sea remains " unmapped , unseen , and unexplored " .
[ H / T : OceanX , Science Alert ]
