Great White shark with bite and scar inflicted by a cookiecutter shark.
The arrow shows the scar from a healed gash.
Great White sharks have long been at the top of the marine food chain; turns out, they are victimized by ravenous Cookiecutter sharks, which bite out chunks of Great White flesh.
The bites, recently documented in the journal, Pacific Science, are like the ultimate sushi.
Lone Cookiecutters sneak up on their Great White victims before taking a big bite.
The sneaky predators rotate their bodies, allowing them to remove plugs of flesh.
This leaves the Great White victim grossly injured, but still alive.
[Shark Teeth Weapons Reveal Surprises]
The attack is quite a feat, considering Cookiecutter sharks are just one-tenth the size of Great Whites.“In most cases, the little sharks will eat little prey; with Cookiecutter sharks, you have an unique situation of a small shark which will target animals much, much larger than itself, up to 10 times their own size, which is pretty unique in the animal kingdom — it’s a very active foraging process,” co-author, Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine biologist in the division of ichthyology, at the Florida Museum of Natural History, on the UF campus, says in a press release.
For the study, researchers analyzed a bite wound near a Great White’s mouth, photographed by a diver in a shark cage near Guadalupe Island, in the Pacific Ocean.
[Baby Sharks Stay Still, to Avoid Being Eaten]
Cookiecutters inhabit deep tropical waters.Their bites have been found on many animals, including tuna, whales, dolphins, swordfish, elephant seals, and even humans.
“When biologists first started noticing the bites on the pelagic fishes and whales, they thought it might be a viral infection, because they didn’t know any animal that could bite and leave such a smooth wound,” Papastamatiou says.
“It’s not only animals — they’ve taken chunks of plastic out of submarines, and underwater oceanographic equipment; it’s pretty amazing what they do.”
This “talent” is made possible by the Cookiecutter’s unique teeth.
Unlike teeth of other sharks, those of Cookiecutters are connected at the bottom, in the lower jaw, allowing them to scoop out the flesh of their victims, like a living melon baller.
These sharks have the largest teeth of any shark, in relation to the size of their jaws.
Cookiecutters are also bioluminescent, meaning they produce their own light on parts of their bodies.
Their hunting tactic is to hide and surprise larger fish, taking bites, before quickly leaving the scene.
“It’s a very mysterious little fish in a lot of ways, mainly because it’s so difficult to study — you hardly ever see them alive,” Papastamatiou says.
“We have to study Cookiecutters based on either dead specimens, or by their bite wounds on prey.”
John McKosker, a senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences, adds, “The public thinks Great Whites, based on the film, ‘Jaws’, are the ultimate predator, whereas even the Whites are preyed upon in this case, by a shark no longer than your forearm.”
(Image: Mauricio Hoyos Padilla et al/Pacific Science)
***
No comments:
Post a Comment