Click Picture for BBC Realplayer video
Still gallery of the frilled shark here.
The frilled shark, Chlamydoselachus anguineus, is a primitive shark species of the family Chlamydoselachidae in the order Hexanchiformes. The Southern African frilled shark is a proposed new species from the Southern African range.
These two species are very different from the other hexanchiform sharks, and it has been recently proposed that the two frilled sharks should be given their own order: Chlamydoselachiformes. Additional extinct types are known from fossil teeth; thought to be extinct itself, it was only discovered in Japanese waters in the 19th century.
This one was also found in Japanese waters by fishermen who alerted the staff at a marine park near Tokyo to the strange fish they’d found. The 1.6 metre long (the length of a 2-seater sofa) animal was transferred to the park but only lived for a short while in a tank. The park’s scientists speculate that it was unhealthy and disorientated to begin with.
There’s been a lot of geological actvity in this area very recently – there was an earthquake in the small islands south of Tokyo in mid-January – so could normally deep-water-dwelling sharks have been stunned by seismic waves moving through water? Could any reader with actual biological and/or geological expertise say if that’s a potential explanation?
