A new species of perfectly white-eyed devil shark has been discovered

new kind of Devil Shark – or Ghost shark – Carried out by an international research team led by Australian scientists. the Abyssal catfish It has completely white and shiny eyes and lays eggs of an unusual shape.

Devil shark, a new species discovered in Australia

Finding yourself in front of a shark is never fun, but it’s even less so if the specimen has perfectly white, shiny eyes, like those of a devil shark. This new species of deep sea dog was discovered by an international research team led by Australian scientists CSIRO extension National Research Collections Australia – Australian National Fish Collection.

The discovery was also possible thanks to the collaboration with colleagues from the Faculty of Hunting inHokkaido University – Japan – andISIEBInstitut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversity at the Sorbonne University in France.

The work that led to the identification of the new devil shark began in 2011, when marine biologists – coordinated by Professor William T. Dogfish eggs are unusually shaped, with some embryos inside (different sharks can be ovoviviparous or oviparous). Noting that the baby sharks belonged to the genus Apristurus, the biologists were able to confirm that the shape of the eggs — which had individual longitudinal undulations — did not correspond to any known species of shark.

This prompted researchers to sift through the museum’s collections, looking for eggs and specimens of dogfish that had yet to be identified. A pair of ‘abnormal’ eggs was recently found in the Australian National Fish Collection, an organization of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. This discovery has allowed us to reach the carcass of a female about 50 cm long, which was already erroneously classified as Southern Chinese sea dog or Apristurus sinensis. Both eggs and the female’s specimen are found outsideDampier Archipelagoin northwestern Australia.

Devil Shark Discovery from the Egg

The female was pregnant and became pregnant one egg. Once they were extracted and compared to the others, the scientists came to the conclusion that they all belong to the same species and that it is a completely new animal, and they classified it with the scientific name Apristurus ovicorrugatus..

But it’s not just the eggs that distinguish this deep-sea shark from other members of the family apristurus. Among the distinguishing features there are alsoIris completely white and shiny. The distinctive eye color is not a common feature of any deep-sea species and – as Professor White told WorldSideKick.com – only one species, Apristurus nakayai from New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea shares this distinctive personality.

While the devil shark also looks like a South Chinese dogfish, it has a cavity The mouth is brown instead of blacklarger pectoral fins and a bizarre spiral intestinal valve.

The results that led to the new discovery – contained in the paper “Which came first, the shark or the egg? Discovering a new species of deep water shark by studying the shape of the egg caseIt was published in the specialized scientific journal fish biology.