today’s shark is the cookie cutter shark. not really a fearsome shark by many standards, but still they have a pretty unique and deep bite so they’re nothing to scoff at. nobody would fancy having a uniform hunk of flesh gouged out by one of these bad boys. i remember being pretty amused by these tiny little sharks during last year’s sharkweek. they’re a bit strange, and incidentally, sometimes even gouge at whale and basking sharks!
known as Isistius brasiliensis, cigar shark, or luminous shark, vital statistics are:
- only about 20″ long fully grown!
- the underside of the shark is bioluminescent, glow shark!
- the cookie cutter is a type of dogfish shark
- cookie cutters are considered parasites
- another reason not to eat fish? sometimes cookie cutters have already taken a bite of the fish you see in markets. ew.
- it has an elongated body cavity filled with an enormous liver comprising as much as 35% of its total weight
so now we’ve gone from VERY LARGE shark to VERY TINY shark. honestly, i have far too many favorites to confine to just a week though…so…
honorable mention for tuesday: ornate wobbegong, no SRSL guys, it’s a shark!
It’s not just a sharkâit’s a CARPET shark!