I was reading the latest in the bio world and here is what i came across on Yahoo News. It is an interesting read.
YAHOO NEWS: Fishermen off Australia who
accidentally caught a whopping basking shark have provided scientists with a
rare opportunity to study the second-biggest fish on the planet.
The 6.3 metre (20 feet) fish, just almost the height of a story building, is causing a
sensation Down Under where little is known about the species -- smaller only
than the whale shark -- as it is not often captured in southern hemisphere
waters.
The rare specimen has been donated to
Museum Victoria, in the southern city of Melbourne, where scientists plan to
use the body to research the shark's genetics, diet and life history.
The museum -- which currently has only
three samples from basking sharks, all over 80 years old -- said Wednesday it
also plans to use the head and fins to build a full-scale exhibition model.
"These rare encounters can provide
many of the missing pieces of knowledge that help broader conservation and
biological research," said the museum's senior curator of ichthyology,
Martin Gomon.
Basking sharks are slow-moving plankton
feeders which can grow up to 12 metres long. Unlike other sharks, their teeth
are tiny -- about two millimetres long -- and they feed by trapping tiny
plankton and jellyfish in their huge mouth, the museum said.
A giant
basking shark that was accidentally picked up by a fishing trawler in the Bass
Strait off th …
They are migratory and widely
distributed, but only regularly seen in a few favoured coastal locations such
as such as Cornwall in England as they can dive deep into the depths of the sea
in search of food.
The shark was accidentally picked up by a
fishing trawler in the Bass Strait off the Australian mainland's southeast.
Museum Victoria's senior collection
manager of vertebrate zoology, Dianne Bray, said basking sharks had been
sighted over the years off Australia's Victoria state, but never in large
numbers.
"They are rare in southern waters,
but not that rare in northern waters," she said. "We have no idea of
what their numbers may be."
Bray she had been inundated with requests
for tissue and other samples from around the world as opportunities to study an
entire animal were rare.
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