Another year of science closes, giving us pause to review those new species of sharks described in the scientific literature, bringing the total number of known shark species to 512. Perhaps it’s a hollow victory to have so many different species known at a time when sharks populations worldwide are either in decline or in a complete population tailspin. But as taxonomists continue to kick ass and give names, our knowledge of shark evolution, biogeography, and ecology continue to get richer. Meet the new sharks of 2015:

Ginglymostoma unami, the Pacific Nurse Shark
This isn’t really the brand-spankin’ new species you might think, but it has been known for well over a century. The Nurse Shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) had a disjunct distribution between the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico and the eastern central Pacific oceans, meaning their range was divided into two separate populations. Like some nooks in the Ozarks, land barriers prevented gene flow, so the populations were both physically and genetically separated by a small spit of land called Central America. This team didn’t use genetic methods to test if the populations were distinct enough to be considered different species, but relied on a meristics, the process of compiling detailed measurements of the shark’s anatomy and comparing these values between the populations.  However, a 2012 paper on populations genetics of G. cirratum showed that the Pacific population was genetically quite unique, and divergent from any of the Atlantic populations. Since these two nurse shark populations had been separated by three million years, a few things can happen, like speciation. Indeed, their analysis showed that these two species are morphologically different enough to warrant giving the Pacific population its own scientific name. This name, G. unami, is an acronym of their alma mater, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Moral-Flores, L.F.D., E. Ramirez-Antonio, A. Angulo, and G. Perez-Ponce de Leon. 2015. Ginglymostoma unami sp. nov. (Chondrichthyes: Orectolobiformes: Ginglymostomatidae): una especie nueva de tiburón gata del Pacífico oriental tropical. Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad 86 (2015) 48-58.

Scyliorhinus ugoi, Dark Speckled Catshark
Way down among Brazilians sharks once swam there in the millions, but overfishing took surely took a hefty toll, yet there are still new shark species to be found. Case in point: a new catshark that had long been swimming along most of the Brazilian coast but had been confused as other known species. Catsharks are a widespread, diverse, and somewhat confusing group of sharks. Differences in color, morphological changes between juveniles & adults, and sexual differences between males & females create difficulties in sorting out just how many species there are. Here, the authors use detailed meristic analysis to extract out a species that had been there all along, but the morphological features that delineate the species had not yet been defined.

SOARES, K.D.A. & GADIG, O.F.B. & GOMES, U.L. 2015. Scyliorhinus ugoi, a new species of catshark from Brazil (Chondrichthyes: Carcharhiniformes: Scyliorhinidae). Zootaxa, 3937 (2): 347-361.

Atelomycterus erdmanni, Spotted-belly Catshark

This sexy beast is one of the more colorful species of catsharks, and is one of several new species discovered from a larger taxonomic mess called the coral catsharks.  Using meristics, genetics, and biogeographical analyses, it turns out that the “coral catshark” represents several species, with this species as the newest. They don’t live in coral, so much as they crawl on and among coral reefs of Indonesia, using their pectoral and pelvic fins like tiny feet and walking like a more limber and agile salamander. Named after Mark Erdmann, a fish taxonomist who collected most of the known specimens, and was rewarded with this li’l shark bearing his name.

Fahmi & White, W.T.  2015. Atelomycterus erdmanni, a new species of catshark (Scyliorhinidae: Carcharhiniformes) from Indonesia. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 14: 14-27.

Bythaelurus tenuicephalus, Narrow-head Catshark
2015 also brought us two more catsharks, from the same genus, and both from the depths of the southwestern Indian Ocean. Hailing from the outer continental shelf of Mozambique and Tanzania comes the Narrow-headed catshark. The vast majority of sharks in recent years have been from the more remote pockets of Earth’s oceans, and in particular, from the deep oceans that have barely been explored. This species of Bythaelurus is a “dwarf”, a species that is sexually mature at a much smaller size than most other species in its genus.  The advantage of dwarfism might allow this species to breed at a younger age, thus increasing their overall lifetime reproductive output. Or it could be that being smaller simply means eating smaller prey that larger species of catsharks might miss. This sort of niche-partitioning may explain why there are so many different species of catsharks. The species name tenuicephalus means “narrow head”, a little less imaginative than some names, but descriptive nonetheless.

KASCHNER, C.J. & WEIGMANN, S. & THIEL, R. 2015. Bythaelurus tenuicephalus n. sp., a new deep-water catshark (Carcharhiniformes, Scyliorhinidae) from the western Indian Ocean. Zootaxa, 4013 (1): 120–138.

Bythaelurus naylori, Dusky Snout Catshark
Another year, another catshark on the list.  This species however, has quite an interesting story behind its capture.  Massive trawlers, towing huge nets and pulling up tons of fish aren’t new, but what is new is the trend for these huge vessels to move from depleted fishing grounds in the shallows, and into the relatively untapped fishery resources of the deep sea. In addition to the targeted commercial species that will earn them great sums of money when they return to port, these nets also catch and kill tons of other non-marketable species.  This is what ecologists call ‘by-catch’, but there is a sunny side to such needless destruction.  Commercial vessels are often the first to explore deep-sea zones, well ahead of research cruises that are difficult to fund and even more impossible to sustain over time. If you can get onto one of these factory trawlers, the bounty of the bycatch is yours, and what a paradise this is to shark researchers. Dave Ebert & Paul Clerkin of the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Lab got the invite to board one of these vessels as it sailed south from Mauritius, but with a small catch: they had to stay for the entire three month trawling season. If you haven’t ever had the displeasure of sailing the wild waves and howling winds where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, then you wouldn’t know that it makes The Deadliest Catch look like a Honolulu harbor cruise. Already hardened by the seas of the Gulf of Alaska, Paul made three of these cruises, collecting more than a dozen new species of skates, rays, sharks, and chimeras that will be published in future years. The species name naylori honors Gavin Naylor of the College of Charleston who, through genetic analysis, is compiling a more complete evolutionary history of extant shark species.

EBERT, D.A. & CLERKIN, P.J. 2015. A new species of deep-sea catshark (Scyliorhinidae: Bythaelurus) from the southwestern Indian Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 15:53-63.

And lastly….
Etmopterus benchleyi, Ninja Lanternshark
If you haven’t already seen this sassy new deepsea shark that went viral late last year, check it out here, and here, and here. That makes six new sharks for 2015, but new species will be discovered and described in 2016, so check back next year.
VÁSQUEZ, V.E. & EBERT, D.A. & LONG, D.J. 2015. Etmopterus benchleyi n. sp., a new lanternshark (Squaliformes: Etmopteridae) from the central eastern Pacific Ocean: Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation; 17: 43-55.

The post Meet the New Sharks of 2015 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Discoveries in science are not often the result of the stereotypical and unrealistic step-by-step scientific method, but usually occur through other more mundane and unexpected routes.  Think of Flemming’s moldy lunchbox sandwiches as the pathway to developing penicillin, or Newton stone-drunk in an orchard contemplating gravity with a rain of apples falling on his noggin’. When marine biologists discover a new species, especially a new shark species, it isn’t the result of putting on a red-knit cap and a pair of Speedos on your research vessel and loudly declaring that you are going to discover a new shark. Throw the mini-sub overboard, gaze into the darkness through an oval window, and bam – a new species is discovered. Bottles of Clicquot pop back on deck, the scientific community hoists you on their shoulders and applauds your excellence in zoology. Maybe the jackals from Shark Week give you a call to recreate your daring feats for a documentary low on facts and ripe with pseudoscience, likely replacing you with younger C-list actors and warping what actually happened with their own overly-dramatic narrative. With our discovery of the newly-described Ninja Lanernshark, it wasn’t the reward of a planned grand adventure, but was the usual meander of social connections, cooperation among colleagues, the benefits of museum archives, hard work from unpaid graduate students, and plain old good luck.

Several years back, John McCosker of the California Academy of Sciences and Dave Ebert, also a Cal. Academy research associate like myself, and I were studying chimeras, distant deep-sea cousins of sharks. One day I got an email from D. Ross Robertson of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute who in 2010 chartered a Spanish trawler and conducted a number of deep-sea collections off the Pacific coast of Central America, and among the barrels of specimens he collected were a few odd-looking chimeras he wanted us to identify.  Ross had the good sense to photograph many of these specimens while they were still fresh out of the nets, and he forwarded them to us. Along with the photos of these chimeras were hundreds of other photos of deep-sea fishes, including sharks, skates, and bony fishes that were either entirely unknown species, or new locality records for previously-known but poorly documented species.  To a deep-sea ichthyologist, this was the jackpot.  I soon headed to the ichthyology collections at the Smithsonian and spent several days pulling these specimens out of gallon jars of ethanol or dipping my arms nearly shoulder-deep into huge vats of the stuff where the large specimens were preserved. Taking photographs, measurements, and making on-the-spot identifications, I compiled a large number of specimens that the fine folks in the Smithsonian ichthyology department shipped back to the California Academy of Sciences where we could more closely study them.

Once the sharks arrived, Dave and I looked them over and we both thought they were a new species since
they were unlike anything yet known from the eastern central Pacific, but “discovering” a new species isn’t as easy as that.  To describe a new species you need to conclusively show the range of variation in your new species is outside the range of variation in previously-known species. It has to be significantly different than any relative species thus far known. To do this required the painstaking and time consuming process of morphometrics, the detailed series of measurements of the sharks anatomy, and meristics, the count of such things as vertebrae, tooth rows, number of dermal denticles, etc. Fortunately, Dave and I already had a process where we worked with young go-getters, mainly his graduate students at the Pacific Shark Research Center in the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory, to learn the process of describing and publishing new species of sharks, rays, and chimeras. Victoria Vasquez was one of his students already with experience in shark ecology and conservation outreach, so he assigned her to heading the job of the not-so-sexy nitty-gritty of the detailed analysis of the formalin-preserved shark specimens with microscopes, rulers, and dial calipers, and she was a superstar at it.

It soon became clear that these small sharks did indeed represent a new species of lanternshark, a family of deep-sea sharks with this as the first species yet known from the region.  Most deep-sea sharks are dark brown or black to blend in with the darkness of the depths, but some species, like the lanternsharks, have bioluminescent organs that glow a shining pale green. This adaptation may either be to attract mates, maintain group cohesion in a school, lure smaller invertebrates within snapping range of their mouth, or possibly to create a halo-like effect to mediate the downwelling light from above and the tell-tale shadow a predator might see from below, making them effectively invisible. The newly described Ninja Lanernshark seemed to have few of these glow-in-the-dark organs, appearing less like a shark jack-o-lantern and more like a Japanese ninja dressed in black, and using their dark visage to their advantage, so prey may never see it coming. When Victoria consulted her young cousins to help with a common name for this new species, there were many options from the excited shark-loving kids, but Ninja Lanternshark, honed down from Super Ninja Shark, seemed appropriate.

The scientific name was of course in honor of Jaws author Peter Benchley. Several decades earlier I worked with him during a shark conservation program through the Cal Academy, and he admitted – what I had already heard through many other people – that he carried a burden of regret for the violent backlash against sharks unintentionally instigated by his book.  For years afterward, he was not just an advocate for sharks, but a tireless campaigner in promoting ocean conservation. Long after his death, the Benchley Awards fund those who share his dream. Coincidentally, this year was the 40th anniversary of the publication of Jaws, and Victoria already knew Benchely’s widow, who was told about the new shark bearing her husband’s name. After several months of measurements, comparisons with other known species, and countless revisions of the manuscript, it was submitted to the Journal of the Ocean Sciences foundation, one of the rare but essentially important journals that still publishes species descriptions of fishes, and more importantly, one with open access, making this shark species immediately available to the world just this week. The ‘discovery’ of a new species of shark means nothing until a detailed, peer-reviewed study is finally made public.  Fortunately, the bottles of Clicquot can still be popped.

Vasquez, V.E., D.A. Ebert, and D.J. Long.  2015. Etmopterus benchleyi n. sp., a new lanternshark (Squaliformes: Etmopteridae) from the central eastern Pacific Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Sciences Foundation, 17:43-55.

The post Ninja Lanternshark: the New Shark Species You Will Never See Coming first appeared on Deep Sea News.

When my pal Dr McClain yanked me out of retirement and asked me to pen a quick post on all the hubbub around the televised and much discussed close encounter between world-champion surfer Mick Fanning and a presumed great white shark at the start of the J-Bay Open in South Africa last weekend, I was given no particular reason for his dusting me off as author. Perhaps Craig’s intentions were to approach someone whom he knows is working on shark conservation at the moment to provide a voice on the subject. Or maybe he intended for me to make some sort of connection to shark-human interactions since I spend a lot of my time thinking about this in my work. Or maybe his intention was for me to employ my trademark wise-assery and irreverent commentary on all the bloviating that’s been done since the event.Here’s the thing about intention… How do we know for sure what anyone (let alone a shark) intends?

Thus far I’ve seen narratives surrounding the Fanning event fall into two distinct themes, hinging on whether or not you wish to call this event a “shark attack.” Within the shark attack camp, I’m seeing lots of “”Fanning got lucky,” or “The shark missed,” story lines. Taking this to the absurd and crackpot level, the always reliable Fox News has even begun to make calls that maybe it’s time to “rid the ocean of sharks.”

On the other end of the spectrum are those who perhaps justifiably feel that the words “shark attack,” are prejudicial and loaded (in other words weighted towards an interpretation where the shark has targeted a human with the intent of harm (the consumption of the human being one possible outcome). This language revision camp has been employing a lot of their own “just so stories” that suggest the “shark got tangled in the surf leash,” or the shark was just “curious.” To this reader, a lot of this smacks of apologetics (and to be fair, I realize that sharks have an unfair and undeserved reputation that words like “attack” help to promote).

Any or all of these explanations might sound plausible and could be correct. But unless someone has suddenly discovered the ability to mind-meld via television with a great white shark, how are any of us to know what was the intention of the shark?

So what do we know about the Fanning incident? We know the time of year, day and hour the incident occurred. We probably have some physical/oceanographic data (water temperature, tidal state, meteorological conditions, etc). We know what Fanning was wearing (color, patterns) and the color and shape of his board. We know that particular stretch of South Africa is home to a lot of seals, and a lot of seal predators. And we seem to know (or presume) that the shark in the video of the incident was a great white shark (there have even been some preliminary back-of-the-envelope calculations of size of the shark).

As far as the intention of the shark, I can offer no compelling accounting that doesn’t load hints to my personal agenda or Panglossian spin. Was the shark targeting the surfer or board for an exploratory bite and Fanning got lucky? Was the shark planning a bite and got distracted after getting tangled in the leash? Was the shark just curious and got spooked by the leash or Fanning’s movements? Did the shark seek out Fanning in search of hugs, and then—after a punch from the surf champion—add more salty tears to an already full ocean?

Well for sure, science gives us some pretty useful approaches to begin to get to the bottom of animal intent. We can (and do) systematically study sharks and are beginning to get a good sense of their behavior. For many species, we are able to document prey as well as behavior around prey. As we spend more and more time in close proximity to sharks, we are learning that they (even those species on many of Shark Week’s “Most Dangerous Sharks” lists) don’t seem to regard us as food when we are in their company. I’ve personally been inches from hundreds of bull sharks on numerous dives and have lived to type out this post with all 10 fingers.

On the one hand, I’m not a fan of language policing. I think it’s hard to define in practical, every-day usage a way to describe a human-shark interaction that results in blood-loss or bodily injury as NOT an attack. I say this in full recognition that the blood-loss or bodily injury may have been an accident or the shark may have “mistaken” a human for something else (whatever that unpacks to mean). In the Fanning incident, maybe the shark was trying to explore Fanning’s board or body as food. If it did, and Fanning were injured, maybe it would leave the scene convinced it was the “wrong” food. Maybe not. But as my friend and colleague WWF-Pacific’s Sharks Manager, Ian Campbell, recently commented, “Sharks do attack people. Doesn’t mean that their populations aren’t in trouble.”

When I personally see all the “don’t say attack” rhetoric being used, I wonder what we should be calling those incidents when dogs or grizzly bears have unfortunate run-ins with humans. In the case of bears, while we’ve comparably decimated their populations and restricted their range, we still seem to be able to co-exist without language policing.

Which makes me consider the other hand, my policy and conservation-focused hand, that words have power and influence. As researchers Chris Neff and Robert Hueter have correctly noted, “Few phrases in the Western world evoke as much emotion or as powerful an image as the words “shark” and “attack.” We have a visceral reaction to each word. Together they conjure our worst nightmares. But globally, sharks are in trouble. Estimates suggest 100 million sharks die each year from fishing alone. This may be twice as fast as shark’s ability to replenish their numbers. Getting people to care about the conservation of sharks hinges on their ability to care about sharks. The legacy of Jaws is not helping in this regard. The science we are amassing is painting an altogether different picture of shark behavior than what has been culturally ingrained my Hollywood. They are not mindless killing machines, but graceful, intelligent predators. If some judicious word policing can help in steering public perceptions and attitudes towards conservation, how bad can that be?

And as to the shark alarmist trend that seems to occupy a lot of public bandwidth (and Fox News) these days, maybe we can look to the grizzly bear once again. When we enter bear country, we take precautions. The chance of a bad human-bear outcome is very low, but there is a risk. When we choose to explore habitat shared by grizzlies, we might wear bells, sing, clap, or even carry pepper spray. In extreme situations, guns might be appropriate. We haven’t demonized grizzlies (or at least we don’t anymore). But we recognize that we are entering an ecosystem that may not have us as the toughest organism around. Want to be 100% risk free? Don’t enter bear country. Perhaps we can apply some of this common sense to our relationship with the ocean as well, and let’s just let sharks be sharks.

The post The Tension of Intention: A Surfer, A Shark, A Fox, And A Grizzly first appeared on Deep Sea News.

It’s just not fair.  There I was, a freshly produced sand tiger shark embryo, developing nicely and making my way down the ovarian ducts to one horn of the uterus.  I had blastulated like a boss, totally owned gastrulation and even did a half decent impersonation of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.  Things were looking good.  Head: one, at opposite end to tail – check.  Fins, paired appropriately on the bottom, tandem along the top – check.  Gills – check.  Teeth – check.  Aww yeah, now we’re cooking.  Those menhaden aren’t going to know what hit ’em. Yessiree bob, I am one bad motor scooter.  I’m cruising along, feeling fine, make a quick right turn into the uterus and then BAM!  Totally nailed by another sand tiger embryo! Right. In. The. Face.  I’m like “Where’d YOU come from” and he was like “You didn’t think your dad was the ONLY one nailing yo Mama did you? Oh wait, she’s my Mama too. Well never mind, you get the point. This here uterus is MINE”  And I was like “Yeah man, but don’t taste me bro!” and he was like “Can’t talk…eating”.  And then things went kinda dark. What’s up with that?

Disappointed

Dear Disappointed,

Awwww, fall prey to a little intra-uterine predation did we?   Dear me, how sad.  Want me to put an Elmo band-aid on your dismembered corpse?  Welcome to the big leagues kid, sucks to be you.   News flash – life ain’t fair and you are not a winner just for showing up.  In fact, a lot of the time you don’t even GET to show up.  Did you think this would be like Glee, that they would allow you all to reach the peak of your pubescent glory before everybody holds hands and sings a bunch of songs that they are way to young to possibly remember?  Er, no. Sorry bub.  Sometimes the war is over before it even begins.  Nature red in tooth and claw doesn’t start at birth, it starts BEFORE birth and you, my friend, just got schooled.  Why did this happen you ask?  Well, you see your Mum…hmmmm, how do I say this?  She get’s around.  Crazy for claspers, capisce?  Your Dad?  Nothing special, one of many.  That means your fallopian flat mates are your half siblings at best, which in turn means most of them, from a selective perspective, have a vested interest in seeing you dead.  But wait, there’s more – they also get to cannibalistically derive sustenance by eating your puny (but ever so soft and tasty) little body.  No, the sand tiger uterus is not like Glee, it’s more like The Highlander (or for you Gleeker-types: The Hunger Games): it’s not uter-US,  it’s uter-ME, and there can be, only ONE!  Only one pup – presumably the fittest – and only one dad.  If it helps, try to think of your pathetic existence as having served a useful purpose, as an important cog in the great process of natural selection.  That’s total BS, but maybe you’ll quit  bugging me with your blubbery sob story.

Abby

Inspiration – Dr. Craig, my wife and:

Demian D. Chapman, Sabine P. Wintner, Debra L. Abercrombie, Jimiane Ashe, Andrea M. Bernard, Mahmood S. Shivji and Kevin A. Feldheim. (2013)  The behavioural and genetic mating system of the sand tiger shark, Carcharias taurus, an intrauterine cannibal.  Biology Letters. 9(3): 20130003  doi:10.1098/rsbl.2013.0003

PS – After I wrote this, I found this, which prompted me to append this:

The post It’s not uterUS, it’s uterME first appeared on Deep Sea News.